CHAPTER XXX 

 WILD LIFE ON THE SUSSEX DOWNS 



Beauties of the downs Gorse Linnaeus and his tears Wheatears and 

 their ways Method of capture Saved by a wheatear pie Cape 

 wheatears Winchats, stonechats, and other birds The dotterel 

 " Playing- the ape " Landrail in flight A great landrail year Pere- 

 grines How they are harried Egg- plunderers The bereaved 

 falcon and her new mate Jackdaws and choughs Down foxes An 

 old huntsman Cuckmere Haven Flower life Effects of clouds and 

 sunshine. 



IT matters not at all at what time of year your rambles 

 may take you upon the smooth maritime hills of 

 Sussex ; if you are a lover of nature and of wild life, 

 there will be always something to repay you. Spring, 

 summer, and autumn have their peculiar and especial 

 beauties, but I have known many a winter's day that 

 held scenes and incidents of extraordinary attraction. 

 Spring, of course, renewing her youth after so many a 

 thousand years, has a charm that nothing can quite 

 equal. That wonderful and mysterious suggestion of a 

 new and fresh existence which, borne upon the soft 

 April air, brings something of the pleasure of youth 

 even to the jaded soul of the town-dweller, loses, you 

 may be sure, nothing of its ineffable sweetness on the 

 fresh and breezy down heights. A hundred signs tell 

 the wanderer if he has anything of observation in his 

 nature that spring is indeed truly here. Yonder covert 

 of gorse, for instance, arrayed so magnificently on the 

 stretching slope and shoulder of the downside, is just 



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