60 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



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 horn- 

 less sheep is rarely to be seen ; but as soon as you pass 

 that river eastward, and mount Beeding-hill y 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 Seeding 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 ? How- 

 ever, 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. 



As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at 

 so late a season of the year, I was determined to keep as 

 sharp a look-out as possible so near the southern coast, 

 with respect to the summer short-winged birds of passage. 

 We make great inquiries concerning the withdrawing of 

 the swallow-kind, without examining enough into the 

 causes why this tribe is never to be seen in winter ; for, 

 entre nous, the disappearing of the latter is more marvellous 

 than that of the former, and much more unaccountable. 

 The hirundines, if they please, are certainly capable of 

 migration, and yet no doubt are often found in a torpid 



