NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 121 



and regular hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air of vegetative 

 dilation and expansion 



Or was there ever a time when these immense masses of 



calcareous matter were thrown into fermentation by some adventitious 

 moisture; were raised and leavened into such shapes by some plastic 

 power ; and so made to swell and heave their broad backs into the sky 

 so much above the less animated clay of the wild below V 



By what I can guess from the admeasurements of 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 hornless sheep is rarely to be seen ; but as 

 soon as you pass that river eastward, and mount Beeding Hill, all the 

 flocks at once becomeVhornless, or as they call them, poll-sheep ; and 1 

 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 Beeding 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 1 ? However, 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 state ; but 

 redstarts, nightingales, white-throats, black-caps, &c. &c., are very ill 

 provided for long flights ; have never been once found, as I ever heard 

 of, in a torpid state, and yet can never be supposed, in such troops, from 

 year to year to dodge and elude the eyes of the curious and inquisitive, 

 which from day to day discern the other small birds that are known to 

 abide our winters. But, notwithstanding all my care, I saw nothing 

 like a summer bird of passage ; and, what is more strange not one 

 wheat-ear,* though they abound so in the autumn as to be a consider- 



* See Letter XXXIX to Pennant, p 80 ; and note. Eighty-four dozen are said 

 to have been taken in a single day ; and Pennant states, that about Eastbourne 

 one thousand eight hundred and forty dozen were taken annually-. 



