SOUTHDOWN SHEPHERD 



There was not so much game on the part of the 

 hills he frequented as he had known when he was 

 young, and with the decrease of the game the foxes 

 had become less numerous. There was less cover 

 as the furze was ploughed up. It paid, of course, 

 better to plough it up, and as much as an addi- 

 tional two hundred acres on a single farm had been 

 brought under the plough in his time. Partridges 

 had much decreased, but there were still plenty of 

 hares : he had known the harriers sometimes kill 

 two dozen a day. 



Plenty of rabbits still remained in places. The 

 foxes' earths were in their burrows or sometimes 

 under a hollow tree, and when the word was sent 

 round the shepherds stopped them for the hunt very 

 early in the morning. Foxes used to be almost 

 thick. He had seen as many as six (doubtless the 

 vixen and cubs) sunning themselves on the cliffs 

 at Beachy Head, lying on ledges before their inac- 

 cessible breeding-places, in the face of the chalk. 



At present he did not think there were more 

 than two there. They ascended and descended 

 the cliff with ease, though not, of course, the straight 

 wall or precipice. He had known them fall over 

 and be dashed to pieces, as when fighting on the 

 edge, or in winter by the snow giving way under 

 them. As the snow came drifting along the sum- 

 mit of the Down it gradually formed a projecting 

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