306 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



as if carried by the impetus. He is a handsome bird, 

 with a well-marked crest. 



The other locality to which I have referred was a 

 wide, open field full of ant-hills. There must have been 

 eight or ten acres of these hills. They rose about 

 eighteen inches or two feet, of a conical shape, and 

 overgrown by turf, like thousands of miniature extinct 

 volcanoes. They were so near together that it was 

 easy to pass twenty or thirty yards, without once 

 touching the proper surface of the ground, by spring- 

 ing from one ant-hill to the other. Thick bunches of 

 rushes grew between, and innumerable thistles flour- 

 ished, and here and there scattered hawthorn bushes 

 stood. It was a favourite place with the finches ; the 

 hawthorn bushes always had nests in them. Thyme 

 grew luxuriantly on the ground between the nests and 

 on the ant-hills. Wild thyme and ants are often 

 found together, as on the downs. How many millions 

 of ants must have been needed to raise these hillocks ! 

 and what still more incalculable numbers must have 

 lived in them ! A wilder spot could scarcely have been 

 imagined, though situate between rich meadow and 

 ploughed lands. 



There was always a covey of partridges about the 

 field, but they could not have had such a feast of 

 eggs as would naturally be supposed, because in the 

 course of time a crust of turf had grown over the ant- 

 hills. The temporary hills of loose earth thrown up 

 every summer by the sides of the fields, where they 

 can lay bare a whole nest with two or three scratches, 



