250 Wild Life in a Southern County 



on a short distance and make no effort to find the nest, 

 they recover confidence and descend. When the peewit 

 alights he runs along a few yards rapidly, as if carried by the 

 impetus. He is a handsome bird, with a well-marked crest. 



The other locality to which I have referred was a wide 

 open field full of ant-hills. There must have been eight 

 or ten acres of these hills. They rose about eighteen 

 inches or two feet, of a conical shape, and overgrown by 

 turf, like thousands of miniature extinct volcanoes. They 

 were so near together that it was easy to pass twenty or 

 thirty yards, without once touching the proper surface of 

 the ground, by springing from one ant-hill to the other. 

 Thick bunches of rushes grew between, and innumerable 

 thistles flourished, and here and there scattered hawthorn 

 bushes stood. It was a favourite place with the finches ; 

 the hawthorn bushes always had nests in them. Thyme 

 grew luxuriantly on the ground between the nests and on 

 the ant-hills. Wild thyme and ants are often found 

 together, as on the Downs. How many millions of ants 

 must have been needed to raise these hillocks ! and what 

 still more incalculable numbers must have lived in them ! 

 A wilder spot could scarcely have been imagined, though 

 situate between rich meadow and ploughed lands. 



There was always a covey of partridges about the field, 

 but they could not have had such a feast of eggs as would 

 naturally be supposed, because in the course of time a 

 crust of turf had grown over the ant-hills. The temporary 

 hills of loose earth thrown up every summer by the sides 

 of the fields, where they can lay bare a whole nest with 

 two or three scratches, must afford much more food. Had 

 it been otherwise all the partridges in the neighbourhood 

 would have gathered together here ; but there never 

 seemed more than one or two coveys about. 



