238 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



length it would descend quite behind the object again 

 and so nightly more and more to the westward. 



LETTER XLV 



..." Mugire videbis 

 Sub pedibus terrain, et descendere inontibus ornos." 



Selborne. 



When I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment 

 and implicit assent, accounts in Baker's Chronicle of 

 walking hills and travelling mountains. John Philips, in 

 his Cyder, alludes to the credit that was given to such 

 stories with a delicate but quaint vein of humour pecuhar 

 to the author of the Splendid Shilling. 



" I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice 

 Of Marcley Hill : the apple nowhere finds 

 A kinder mould : yet 'tis unsafe to trust 

 Deceitful ground : who knows but that once more 

 This mount may journey, and his present site 

 Forsaken, to thy neighbour's bounds transfer 

 Thy goodly plants, affording matter strange 

 For law debates I " 



But, when I came to consider better, I began to sus- 

 pect that though our hills may never have journeyed 

 that far, yet tlie ends of many of them have slipped and 

 fallen away at distant periods, leaving the cliffs bare and 

 abrupt. This seems to have been the case with Nore and 

 Whetham hills ; and especially with the ridge between 

 Harteley-park and Ward le ham, where the ground has 

 slid into vast sweUings and furrows ; and lies still in such 

 romantic confusion as cannot be accounted for from any 

 other cause. A strange event that happened not long 



