172 OUR NATIVE SONGSTERS. 



on these downs. Tliey are then in good condition 

 for the tahle, and so suspicious are tliey, that tlie 

 smallest alarm, even the shadow of a passing: cloud. 

 will induce them to run into the traps which are 

 laid for them. These traps are of the most sim- 

 ple description, yet a shepherd has been known 

 by their means to capture eighty-four dozen in a 

 day, six or seven hundred of the traps being 

 overlooked by one man and his boy. Pennant 

 states, that in his time about eighteen hundred 

 and forty dozen were annually caught on the 

 Eastbourne downs, where they still form a profit- 

 able trade to the shej)herds. Immense numbers 

 of birds arrive there, and at Bi-achy Head, daily, 

 during the months of August and September. 

 Nor can we, though we i)ity the birds, deprecate 

 the practice of taking them, since the lower orders 

 of creatures were made for the service of man, 

 and the wheatears leave behind them no young 

 ones to perish of cold and hunger for want of the 

 care of a parent. But when, in the earlier 

 months, the sportsman takes his gun to our 

 moorlands, and brings down the bird which has 

 a young brood, the practice is a very cruel one, 

 for the bird is too much injured by the shot to be 



