18 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



into every crack and crevice on one bough, and away 

 to another tree a hundred yards distant, leaving 

 fifty boughs behind without examination. Starlings 

 literally race over the earth where they are feeding 

 jealous of each other lest one should be first, and so 

 they leave a tract all around not so much as looked 

 at. Then, having run a little way, they rise and 

 fly to another part of the field. Each starling seems 

 full of envy and emulation eager to outstrip his fellow 

 in the race for titbits ; and so they all miss much of 

 what they might otherwise find. Their life is so 

 gregarious that it resembles that of men in cities : 

 watching one another with feverish anxiety pushing 

 and bustling. Larks are much calmer, and always 

 appear placid even in their restlessness, and do not 

 jostle their neighbours. 



See the hawk, after going nearly out of sight, has 

 swept round, and passes again at no great distance; 

 this is a common habit of his kind, to beat round in 

 wide circles. As the breeze strikes him aslant his 

 course he seems to fly for a short time partly on one 

 side, like a skater sliding on the outer edge. 



There is a rough grass growing within the enclosure 

 of the earthwork and here and there upon the hills, 

 which the sheep will not eat, so that it remains in 

 matted masses. In this the hares make their forms ; 

 and they must, somehow, have a trick of creeping 

 into their places, since many of the grass blades often 

 arch over, and if they sprang into the form heedlessly 

 this could not be the case, as their size and weight 



