180 THE OPEN AIR. 



will come, but not generally till the redwings have 

 appeared below in the valleys; while the fieldfares 

 go upon the hills, the green plovers, as autumn 

 comes on, gather in flocks and go down to the plains. 

 Hawks regularly beat along the furze, darting on a 

 finch now and then, and owls pass by at night. 

 Nightjars, too, are down-land birds, staying in woods 

 or fern by day, and swooping on the moths which 

 flutter about the furze in the evening. Crows are too 

 common, and work on late into the shadows. Some- 

 times, in getting over the low hedges which divide 

 the uncultivated sward from the ploughed lands, you 

 almost step on a crow, and it is diflScult to guess 

 what he can have been about so earnestly, for search 

 reveals nothing — no dead lamb, hare, or carrion, or 

 anything else is visible. Eooks, of course, are seen, . 

 and larks, and once or twice in a morning a magpie, 

 seldom seen in the cultivated and preserved valley. 

 There are more partridges than rigid game preservers 

 would deem possible where the overlooking, if done 

 at all, is done so carelessly. Partridges will never 

 cease out of the land while there are untouched 

 downs. Of all southern inland game, they afford 

 the finest sport ; for sport in its genuine sense cannot 

 be had without labour, and those who would get 

 partridges on the hills must work for them. Shot 

 down, coursed, poached, killed before maturity in 

 the corn, still hares are fairly plentiful, and couch 

 in the furze and coarse grasses. Babbits have much 

 decreased; still there are some. But the larger fir 

 copses, when they are enclosed, are the resort of all 

 kinds of birds of prey yet left in the south, and, 



