130 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



wheatear (" our ortolan," as it was affectionately called) 

 is mentioned by writers of two or three centuries ago, 

 the charm of the bird (on the table) is so rapturously 

 dwelt upon, with such an air of rolling a fat delicious 

 morsel in the mouth, and smacking the lips after 

 deglutition, and stroking a well-satisfied stomach, that 

 one is led to think that the happiness of the great, 

 the wise, and the good of that age was centred in 

 their bellies, and that they looked on the eating of 

 wheatears as the highest pleasure man could know; 

 unless indeed they considered it an even higher one "to 

 see all their friends drunk and happy about them." 



In July the shepherds made their " coops," as their 

 traps were called — a T-shaped trench about fourteen 

 inches long, over which the two long narrow sods cut 

 neatly out of the turf were adjusted, grass downwards. 

 A small opening was left at the end for ingress, and 

 there was room in the passage for the bird to pass 

 through toward the chinks of light coming from the 

 two ends of the cross passage. At the inner end 

 of the passage a horse-hair springe was set, by which 

 the bird was caught by the neck as it passed in, but 

 the noose did not as a rule strangle the bird. 



On some of the high downs near the coast, notably 

 at Beachy Head, at Birling Gap, at Seaford, and in 

 the neighbourhood of Rottingdean, the shepherds made 

 so many coops, placed at small distances apart, that 

 the downs in some places looked as if they had been 

 ploughed. In September, when the season was over, 



