over Brookly Bridge, and on the other side of the stream turn to the left towards the west. Our road crosses a strip of open common studded with low Furze, between the clumps of which are yellow Hawkweeds in flower, whilst heather blossoms empurple the greensward here and there. The common soon widens out, and we speedily come in sight, as we follow our path, of the embrowned and empurpled surface of the forest as it rolls away westwards, towards Ringwood. Away to our right is an upland meadow bordered by trees, and at its foot a row of little cottages, their white walls, their blue and red tiles and thatch, and the curls of blue smoke which are rising slowly into the air, standing out in relief against the rising ground of the meadow. We start late in the afternoon, and the sun in the west is already declining behind wreathed banks of cloud. But we hasten our steps, and soon get away from the turf of the common, and from the enclosures of meadow, homestead, and cottage, passing into a region of forest where the ground is no longer green but embrowned by faded leaves and faded Heather-bells, and empurpled here and there by the now blossoming moorland plant. We reach the crest of an upland from which we can see all around us the rolling forest-the brown expanse of Heather stretching away to the north until it is bounded by the dark-green lines of wood on the high grounds; to the east, the village of Brockenhurst; to the south, rolling open heath; to the west, brown, heathery uplands; and, just below us to the south-west, a belt of Oak and Beech wood. The autumnal colouring of the Bracken is seen with much effect during a long walk across a forest. On its glades, in its depths, and on its open heaths, this beautiful Fern abounds, and in the early Autumn its fronds are variously affected according to the position in which they are growing. Here and there it has not lost the depth of its summer green. But in strong contrast to this verdancy some fronds on the same plants have turned to a dark, rich brown, others are straw-coloured, and others almost golden in their dying glow. Then there are splendid hues of orange, spread, sometimes sparingly and sometimes largely, upon clustering Bracken fronds, and now and then the same plants may include all these shades and colours. Not unfrequently F |