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Bindon Hill 235 



soft, black, peaty substance. It is here that on a 

 summer evening you may see the green lamp of the 

 glow-worm, even at this height of five hundred feet ; 

 striped shells of all colours are strewn about here, 

 chiefly the endless varieties of one abundant species. 

 Spiders and beetles are to be sought for rather in 

 the fringe of longer grass which bounds these turfy 

 spaces; but the chirruping grasshopper is every- 

 where. At every step this September they leap out 

 by twos and threes; and I think it must be these 

 which are just now attracting such numbers of 

 Kestrels to Bindon's southern slopes, where the life 

 in the grass is most abundant. They are hovering 

 all around, not high in the air, as one sees them 

 inland, or waiting long on motionless wing till you 

 are tired of watching them, but poising themselves 

 for a minute not many yards above the grass, and 

 then quietly settling down on it to eat their prey. 

 So intent are they on this pursuit, that you may 

 occasionally creep quite close to them, though not 

 quite close enough to see what it is they are after. 

 No one seems to molest these beautiful birds; the 

 folk here, by calling them "Beetle-hawks," show 

 plainly that they associate them with no mischief to 

 the innumerable rabbits which burrow on the hill- 

 side ; and indeed, if they did now and then carry 

 off a young one, more good would perhaps be done 

 than harm. So they are left to enjoy on Bindon a 



