WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 61 



pearance of the broad silver disc with the figure of 

 " St. Gaarge " conquering the dragon. 



Everywhere across the hills traces of the old rabbit- 

 warrens may be found in the names of places. Warren 

 Farms, Warren Houses, etc., are common ; and the 

 term is often added to the names of the villages to 

 distinguish an outlying part of the parish. From the 

 earthwork the sites of four such warrens, now culti- 

 vated, can be seen within the radius of as many miles. 

 Rabbits must have swarmed on the downs in the 

 olden times. In the season when the couch and 

 weeds are collected in heaps and burned, the downs 

 were it not for the silence might seem the scene of a 

 mighty conflict, the smoke of the battle rolling along 

 the slopes and hanging over the plains, rising up from 

 the hollows in dusky clouds. But the cannon of the 

 shadowy army give forth no thunderous roar. The 

 smouldering fires are not, of course, peculiar to the hills, 

 but the smoke shows so much more at that elevation. 



At evening, if you watch the sunset from the top of 

 the rampart, as the red disc sinks to the horizon and 

 the shadows lengthen the trees below and the old 

 barn throwing their shadows up the slope the eye is 

 deceived by the position of the light, and the hill 

 seems much higher and steeper, looking down from 

 the summit, than it does at noonday. It is an optical 

 delusion. Here on the western side the grass is still 

 dry ; in the deep narrow valleys behind the sun set 

 long since over the earthwork and ridge, and the dew 

 is already gathering thickly on the sward. 



