"deserted island", subcategory "desert forest"

[Joel S. Berson]

 From "As You Like It", Act 2, Scene 4--set in the Forest of
Arden--lines 71-73:

Rosalind:  I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold / Can in this
desert place buy entertainment, / Bring us where we may rest
ourselves and feed.

At a performance I attended in Boston a year or two ago, upon hearing
these lines a woman behind me audibly queried her companion, "A
desert forest?!"

Perhaps she was enlightened by a later scene.  OED2 not surprisingly
prefers a quotation from Act 1, Scene 7, lines 110-111:

Orlando: That in this desert inaccessible, / Under the shade of
melancholy boughs ...

Joel