THE SOUTHDOWN SnEPEEBD. 221 



the shops at the market towns, where scores of them 

 are hmig up on show, all exactly alike, made to 

 pattern, as if stamped out by machinery. 



Each village-made crook had an individuality, that 

 of the blacksmith— somewhat rude, perhaps, but 

 distinctive — the hand shown in the iron. While talk- 

 ing, a wheatear flew past, and alighted near the path 

 — a place they frequent. The opinion seems general 

 that wheatears are not so numerous as they used to 

 be. You can always see two or three on the Downs 

 in autumn, but the shepherd said years ago he had 

 heard of one man, catching seventy dozen in a day. 



Perhaps such wholesale catches were the cause of 

 the comparative deficiency at the present day, not 

 only by actual diminution of numbers, but in partially 

 diverting the stream of migration. Tradition is very 

 strong in birds (and all animated creatures) ; they 

 return annually in the face of terrible destruction, and 

 the individuals do not seem to comprehend the danger. 

 But by degrees the race at large becomes aware of and 

 acknowledges the mistake, and slowly the original 

 tracks are deserted. This is the case with w^ater-fowl, 

 and even, some think, with sea-fish. 



There was not so much game on the part of the 

 hills he frequented as he had known when he w^as 

 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 additional two 

 hundred acres on a single farm had been brought 

 under the plough in his time. Partridges had much 

 decreased, but there w^ere still plenty of hares : he 



