The bark of the oak, when stripped and stacked, requires fine weather to dry it, much the same as hay, so that a wet season like 1879 is very unfavourable.
In the open glades of the Chace there were noble clumps of beeches, and if you walked quietly under them in the still October days you might hear a slight but clear and distinct sound above you.

This was caused by the teeth of a squirrel nibbling the beech-nuts, and every now and then down came pieces of husk rustling through the coloured leaves.

Sometimes a nut would fall which he had dropped; and yet, with the nibbling sound to guide the eye, it was not always easy to distinguish the little creature.

But his tail presently betrayed him among the foliage, far out on a bough where the nuts grew.

The husks, if undisturbed, remain on all the winter and till the tree is in full green leaf again; the young nuts are formed about midsummer.
The black poplars are so much like the aspen as to be easily mistaken, especially as their leaves rustle in the same way.