The Selborne atmosphere--Unhealthy faces--Selborne Common--Character of scenery--Wheatham Hill--Hampshire village churches--Gilbert White's strictures--Churches big and little--The peasants' religious feeling--Charm of old village churches--Seeking Priors Dean--Privett church--Blackmoor church--Churchyards--Change in gravestones--Beauty of old gravestones--Red alga on gravestones--Yew trees in churchyards--British dragon-tree--Farringdon village and yew--Crowhurst yew--Hurstbourne Priors yew--How yew trees are injured. CHAPTER X. Wolmer Forest--Charm of contrast and novelty in scenery--Aspect of Wolmer--Heath and pine--Colour of water and soil--An old woman's recollections--Story of the "Selborne mob"--Past and present times compared--Hollywater Clump--Age of trees--Bird life in the forest--Teal in their breeding haunts--Boys in the forest--Story of the horn-blower. CHAPTER XI. The Hampshire people--Racial differences in neighbouring counties--A neglected subject--Inhabitants of towns--Gentry and peasantry--Four distinct types--The common blonde type--Lean women--Deleterious effects of tea-drinking--A shepherd's testimony--A mixed race--The Anglo-Saxon--Case of reversion of type--Un-Saxon character of the British--Dark-eyed Hampshire people--Racial feeling with regard to eye-colours--The Iberian type--Its persistence--Character of the small dark man--Dark and blonde children--A dark village child. CHAPTER XII. Test and Itchen--Vegetation--Riverside villages--The cottage by the river--Itchen valley--Blossoming limes--Bird visitors--Goldfinch--Cirl bunting--Song--Plumage--Three common river birds--Coots--Moor-hen and nest--Little grebes' struggles--Male grebe's devotion--Parent coot's wisdom--A more or less happy family--Dogged little grebes--Grebes training their young--Fishing birds and fascination. CHAPTER XIII. Morning in the valley--Abundance of swifts--Unlikeness to other birds--Mayfly and swallows--Mayfly and swift--Bad weather and hail--Swallows in the rain--Sand martins--An orphaned blackbird--Tamed by feeding--Survival of gregarious instinct in young blackbirds--Blackbird's good-night--Cirl buntings--Breeding habits and language--Habits of the young--Reed bunting--Beautiful weather--The oak in August. CHAPTER XIV. Yellow flowers--Family likeness in flavours and scents--_Mimulus luteus_--Flowers in church decoration--Effect of association--_Mimulus luteus_ as a British plant--A rule as to naturalised plants wanted--A visit to Swarraton--Changes since Gilbert White's day--"Wild musk"--Bird life on the downs--Turtle-dove nestlings--Blue skin in doves--A boy naturalist--Birds at the cottage--The wren's sun-bath--Wild fruits ripen--An old chalk pit--Birds and elderberries--Past and present times compared--Calm days--Migration of swallows--Conclusion. {1} HAMPSHIRE DAYS CHAPTER I