182 



FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



and s23ortsman; there cannot be a good and 

 successful s2)ortsman unless he is fully acquainted 

 with tlic habits of the creature he pursues. Some 

 rules it is impossible for the most studious 

 naturalist to compreliend, and the little and most 

 delicious bird, the wheatear, affords us one of 

 them. To follow the example of Darwin (not 

 a good one) to account for the nervous state of 

 terror in a wheatear at a passing cloud, wliichj 

 when sailing in the atmosphere above him, induces 

 the bird to seek shelter in the nearest hole, w^ould 

 lead a theorist to suppose that in former years, 

 when two-legged beasts of prey w^erc fewer, and 

 eagles and rajjacious foes were many, these pretty, 

 graceful, little birds had been inveterately pur- 

 sured by Avinged tyrants even to the death, and 

 then, from a habit of living in terror of some 

 flying monster, the nervousness had been handed 

 down by '^sexual selection" to the birds of the 

 Sussex Downs. The shepherds on the Downs 

 are so aware of tliis nature in tlie bird, that tliey 

 raise a turf on the short greensward^ Avhich, 

 without artificial means, affords no shelter, to 

 entice the wheatear to seek it, when in terror, 

 from a passing cloud, or from a more real cnemyj 



