256 NATURAL HISTORY 



masses of calcareous matter were thrown into fermenta- 

 tion by some adventitious moisture; were raised and 

 leavened into such shapes by some plastic power ; and 

 so made to swell and heave their broad backs into the 

 sky so much above the less animated clay of the wild 

 below? 



By what I can guess from the admeasurements of the 

 hills that have been taken round my house, I should 

 suppose that these hills surmount the wild at an average 

 at about the rate of five hundred feet. 



One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : from 

 the westward till you get to the river Adur all the flocks 

 have horns, and smooth white faces, and white legs; 

 and a hornless sheep is rarely to be seen : but as soon 

 as you pass that river eastward, and mount Beeding 

 Hill, all the flocks at once become hornless, or, as they 

 call them, poll sheep ; and have moreover black faces, 

 with a white tuft of wool on their foreheads, and 

 speckled and spotted legs: so that you would think 

 that the flocks of Laban were pasturing on one side of 

 the stream, and the variegated breed of his son-in-law 

 Jacob were cantoned along on the other. And this 

 diversity holds good respectively on each side from the 

 valley of Bramber and Beeding to the eastward, and 

 westward all the whole length of the downs. If you 

 talk with the shepherds on this subject, they tell you 

 that the case has been so from time immemorial ; and 

 smile at your simplicity if you ask them whether the 

 situation of these two different breeds might not be 

 reversed. However, an intelligent friend of mine near 

 Chichester is determined to try the experiment; and 

 has this autumn, at the hazard of being laughed at, 

 introduced a parcel of black -faced hornless rams among 

 his horned western ewes. The black-faced poll sheep 

 have the shortest legs and the finest wool 2 . 



2 To assert that the black-faced, hornless race of sheep, known as 

 South Downs, can exist westward of the river Adur, would be super- 

 fluous : they are not only to be seen on the downs to the west of Bramber, 



