92 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



at the approacli of winter, some to seek other 

 climes, and others, the dunnock included, to spend 

 the cold months in sheltered situations in the low- 

 lands. 



A few birds of the woods and homesteads also come 

 in summer to the solitary furze-gardens — thrush and 

 blackbird, robin, wren, and chaffinch. And here too 

 you find the red-backed shrike; but he is most 

 common among the thorns at the foot of the downs 

 on the north side of the range. 



All these birds of the downs, I have said, inhabit 

 and breed in the furze and other bushes. The sky- 

 lark and wheatear are exceptions. The skylark is 

 fairly common all over the hills, and breeds either in 

 the corn-fields or on the untilled downs where they 

 are covered with a thick grass which the sheep refuse 

 to eat. The wheatear does not find many suitable 

 breeding-places on the smooth turf of the sheep-walks ; 

 the barren, rough, stony places he loves best are few 

 and far between. He usually lays his eggs in an old 

 rabbit-hole on some spot where the chalk and flints 

 are only partially covered by a scanty turf. At one 

 spot very near the sea I found ten or twelve pairs 

 breeding quite close together. And here again, as in 

 the case of the gulls seen standing on and against the 

 patches of rose-red sea-pink, I came upon a wonderful 

 flower-and-bird scene and living picture of exquisite 

 beauty, and saw the pretty wheatear as I had never 

 seen him before, and most probably shall never see 



