Illustration: SHEPHERD AND WOODSMEN, ARCACHON. [_Page 57._ As regards the forest of Arcachon, we were struck specially by the fungi of all sorts and colours, that grow at the foot of the trees, and on the vivid green branching, long-stalked moss that envelops the surface of the ground: deep violet, orange, soft blue, brilliant yellow, scarlet and black spotted, dingy ink-black were some of the colours that I noted. Indeed, I did more than "note" them, for I picked a fair-sized basket full, took them back to the hotel, did them up carefully and despatched them to the post-office, where they refused to send them to England, saying that, owing to recent stipulations, they were not allowed to send such commodities by parcel post any longer. Crestfallen and disappointed, I had to unpack that gorgeous paint-box of colours again, and left them on my window ledge to enjoy them myself before they deliquesced. In the forest here is no sound of birds. Too many have been shot for that to be possible any longer, and consequently a strange, eerie silence prevails over everything. Alas! I saw no birds at all, except a few long-tailed tits. The sunlight lay roughly gleaming on the red-brown needles below the dark pine trees, and grey and soft on the white, silvery sand. No other colour broke the sombre, olive green of the foliage overhead, but here and there flecks of vivid yellow, from the heather growing sparsely in clumps, spattered like a flung egg upon the banks. The stems of the pines are a rich red-brown, flaked and covered in places with soft, green lichen. The hotel was not a place where one got much change in the matter of guests, but people came in for lunch now and again _en route_ for somewhere else; and I shall never forget one such party. It consisted of a father, mother and two small infants of about one and a half and two and a half years of age. The children fed as did the parents. I watched with interest the courses which were packed into these children's mouths. Radishes, roast rabbit, egg omelet, _vin ordinaire_ and milk, mixed (or one after the other, I really forget which!) From time to time they were attacked by spasms of whooping-cough, which rendered the process of digestion even more difficult than it would otherwise have been. One of the children had a cherubic face, and each time a doubtful morsel was crammed into his mouth he turned up his eyes seraphically to heaven as he admitted it, but--if he disliked its taste--only for time enough to turn it over once in his mouth previous to ejecting it! The parents never seemed to be in the least deterred from pressing these morsels on him, however often they returned.