NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



redpoles at certain seasons are plentiful, as are yellow- 

 hammers. The cirl-bunting is a rare and shy visitant, 

 but, especially about the gorse-clad valleys, he is 

 occasionally to be seen. The corn-bunting, with his 

 screeching cry, is, of course, familiar. Larks are by 

 far the most numerous bird inhabitants of the South 

 Downs ; in spring they are extraordinarily abundant, 

 and the whole air seems to be filled with their sweet 

 song. In no part of England are the skylark and its 

 song to be appreciated so completely as upon the vast 

 free spaces of this high open country. At one time or 

 another an infinity of small birds wagtails, pipits, tits, 

 and others are to be noted in various parts of the down 

 country. I have no space in which even to enumerate 

 them. 



One of our rarest visitants is, I think, the grass- 

 hopper warbler, which I have heard and seen only 

 once or twice upon the downs. The curious shrill, 

 whirring note from which this bird takes its name is 

 quite unmistakable, and once heard can never be for- 

 gotten. It is quite unlike the note of any other small 

 bird, and has been said to have been mistaken by an 

 Ayrshire rustic for the warning noise of a rattlesnake, 

 though why a rattlesnake should have been imagined 

 in the peaceful wilds of Burns's country is not explained. 

 This is quite a small bird, little larger than the sedge- 

 warbler, which it somewhat resembles. 



Among the more notable birds of the downs, one of 

 the rarest is certainly the dotterel, which seventy or 

 eighty years ago was comparatively common in this 

 country, so much so as to be reckoned in some locali- 

 ties among birds of sport. One of the handsomest of 

 the plover family, this bird, with its lower breast of 

 dull orange, separated from the brown upper breast by 

 a gorget of white, the head strikingly marked in black, 



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