At present, notwithstanding the occasional prospect of distant collieries, there are few districts in the Midlands which offer more attractions than Cannock Chase. The contour of the ground, it is true, does not exhibit much variety. It is, as has been said, an undulating plateau from which fairly well-marked valleys, gradually deepening, descend towards the lowlands, but there is much diversity in the minor details. Here sturdy oaks are scattered or graceful birches cluster close on slope or valley. Here only some weather-beaten sentinel of either tree, or a wind-worn thorn breaks the barrenness of the hill, or a few Scotch firs crown its crest. Almost everywhere the bracken flourishes, and heath or ling grows thick on the stony soil. So, in the late summer, the Chase for miles glows with the crimson bloom of the heath, or is flushed with the tender pink of the ling, while as autumn draws on the fern turns to gold on the slopes, and on the barer brows the bilberry leaf changes to scarlet, and the moor, soon to don the russet hue of its winter garb, seems to reflect the rich tints of the sunset sky. But this is not all. Among its many charms is the contrast of scenery: one moment you may be quite shut in by the undulations of the moorland--sweeps of fern and heath and ling bounding the view on every side--seemingly as far from the haunts of man as among the Sutherland Hills; but the next, on gaining the crest of some rounded ridge, many a mile of fertile lowland spreads out before your eyes--many a league of the rich vales of the Trent and the Sow, one vast and varied tapestry of woodland and cornfield and pasture, while beyond and above, rise, in this direction, the Wrekin dome and the Caradoc peaks, in that the great rounded uplands of Derbyshire, and in that the more broken outlines of the Charnwood Forest Hills. Deer once were common, black-game and grouse abundant, the snipe and even the woodcock made their nests in the valleys, and other rare birds were to be seen. But now the deer are few and the game is scanty. Cannock Chase, like the rest of Great Britain, suffers from the congestion of humanity.