Downs 



traversing it if you look back you will sigh at the 

 hopelessness of getting over the hills. The mile is 

 such a little way, only just along one slope and 

 down into the narrow valley strewn with flints and 

 small boulders. If that is a mile, it must be another 

 up to the white chalk quarry yonder, another to the 

 copse on the ridge; and how far is the hazy horizon 

 where the ridges crowd on and hide each other? 

 Like rowing at sea, you row and row and row, and 

 seem where you started waves in front and waves 

 behind; so you may walk and walk and walk, and 

 still there is the intrenchment on the summit, at the 

 foot of which, well in sight, you were resting some 

 hours ago. 



Rest again by the furze, and some goldfinches 

 come calling shrilly and feasting undisturbed upon 

 the seeds of thistles and other plants. The bird- 

 catcher does not venture so far; he would if there 

 was a rail near; but he is a lazy fellow, fortunately, 

 and likes not the weight of his own nets. When 

 the stubbles are ploughed there will be troops of 

 finches and linnets up here, leaving the hedgerows 

 of the valley almost deserted. Shortly the fieldfares 

 will come, but not generally till the redwings have 

 appeared below in the valleys; while the fieldfares 

 go upon the hills, the green plovers, as autumn 

 comes on, gather in flocks and go down to the plains. 

 Hawks regularly beat along the furze, darting on a 

 finch now and then, and owls pass by at night. 

 Nightjars, too, are down-land birds, staying in woods 

 or fern by day, and swooping on the moths which 

 flutter about the furze in the evening. Crows are too 

 common, and work on late into the shadows. Some- 

 times, in getting over the low hedges which divide 

 the uncultivated sward from the ploughed lands, you 

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