APPEARANCE IN AUTUMN. 59 



describes them as leaving his neighbourhood 

 that at which the swallow takes its departure 

 they are perhaps more numerous here than at any 

 other time of the year. The maritime tract ex- 

 tending from Brighton to Chichester, the whole 

 range of the Downs, the highly-cultivated district 

 between them and the weald, and the open por- 

 tions of the forest range in the eastern division, 

 abound with numbers of this species, which seem 

 to accumulate in the neighbourhood of the coast 

 as the winter approaches. Many of these are, of 

 course, birds of the year, but a considerable pro- 

 portion are adult, and I am convinced that I have 

 seen more of the latter during a morning's walk 

 among the fields, about the latter part of October, 

 in the neighbourhood of Worthing, than could 

 have been found in half the county during the 

 breeding-season. 



When the corn has been reaped, and the pro- 

 cess of gleaning or leazing, as it is here termed 

 finished, the kestrel may be seen hovering over 

 the stubbles: then, and for a long time after- 

 wards, those fields abound with their favourite 

 prey. Let us bear in mind that the arboreal 

 beetles (Lucanidcs, Melolonthidcs, Cetoniada, 

 &c.), and the large moths and grubs of different 

 kinds, which constitute so great a proportion of 

 their daily food during the summer months, have 



