The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood. Richard Fortey
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Название: The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood
Автор: Richard Fortey
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Прочая образовательная литература
isbn: 9780008104672
isbn:
William Collins
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1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016
Copyright © Richard Fortey 2016
The author asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008104696
Ebook Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9780008104672
Version: 2017-03-17
For Eileen and Stuart Skeates
Contents
1
After a working life spent in a great museum, the time had come for me to escape into the open air. I spent years handling fossils of extinct animals; now, the inner naturalist needed to touch living animals and plants. My wife Jackie discovered the advertisement: a small piece of the Chiltern Hills up for sale. The proceeds from a television series proved exactly enough to purchase four acres of ancient beech-and-bluebell woodland, buried deeply inside a greater stretch of stately trees. The briefest of visits clinched the deal – exploring the wood simply felt like coming home. On 4 July 2011 ‘Grim’s Dyke Wood’ became ours.
I began to keep a diary to record wildlife, and the look and feel of the woodland as it passed through diverse moods and changing seasons. I sat on one particular stump to make observations, which I wrote down in a small, leather-bound notebook. I was unconsciously compiling a biography of the wood – bio in the most exact sense, since animals and plants formed an important part of it. Before long, I saw that the story was as much about human history as it was about nature. For all its ancient lineage, the wood was shaped by human hand. I needed to explore the development of the English countryside, all the way from the Iron Age to the recent exploitation of woodland for beech furniture or tent pegs. I was moved by a compulsion to understand half-forgotten crafts and revive half-remembered words like ‘bodger’, ‘spile’ СКАЧАТЬ