18 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



appear in these his favourite haunts, arid his mo- 

 notonous "churr" be prolonged during the still, 

 summer evenings. 



After leaving this wild tract, and striking the 

 high road between Pulborough and Arundel, the 

 view that suddenly burst upon me was singularly 

 beautiful. The great alluvial plain, watered by 

 the Arun, lay spread beneath. Far to the right, 

 on the opposite side of the river, were the old 

 ruins of Amberley Castle, its dark, gray walls 

 standing in bold relief from the smooth Downs, 

 which, bounding this side of the picture as far as 

 the eye could reach, seemed at last to mingle, 

 cloud-like, with the distant horizon, and the hol- 

 low valleys that lay between them were filled with 

 a soft, half transparent mist, the effect of which, 

 with the summits of the hills bathed in sunshine, 

 it would be impossible for the pen to describe, and 

 Copley Fielding alone could depict with the 

 pencil. 



But how different was the appearance of the 

 intervening plain " sixty years since." Those 

 wide meadows, clothed with long, rank grass, 

 where herds of black cattle now lazily chew the 

 cud, were then covered with dense woods, where 

 the adventurous sportsman delighted to contend 

 with the tangled brushwood, and wade, knee-deep, 

 through the marshy jungles that extended for 



