CHAPTER V 



WILD LIFE 



Wild life confined to the furze — The rabbit and his enemy — The 

 fox abundant — A badgers' earth — Tenacity of the badger — 

 Dead shrews — Moles without water — Catching moles for fun — 

 A shepherd on moles — Birds — Extinct species— A shepherd's 

 reminiscences — Buzzards building on bushes — Black game in 

 Ashdown Forest — The last stone curlew— Long-eared owl — 

 Pre-natal suggestion in the lower animals — Existing large birds 

 — A colony of gulls at Seaford — Kestrel preying on grass- 

 hoppers — Turtle-dove — Missel-thrush and small birds — Wheat- 

 ears and sea-poppies — Shrike — The common lizard's weakness 

 — Sheep killed by adders — Beauty of the adder — A handful of 

 adders — Shepherd boy and big snake. 



The very small animal life, the fairy fauna as I have 

 called it, is that of the close- cropped turf ; the larger 

 wild life of bird and beast and reptile is almost exclu- 

 sively confined to the rough spots overgrown with 

 furze, bramble, and other bush and dwarf-tree vege- 

 tation, in some places intermixed with bracken and 

 heather. These rough isolated places are sometimes 

 like islands on a wide expanse of smooth turf ; and for 

 those who love wildness, and wild creatures, they are 

 often delightful spots in which to spend a long summer's 

 day. Here the creatures live a comparatively undis- 

 turbed life ; at all events it may be said that they are 

 not much disturbed by man out of the shooting and 



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