138 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



or a fourth part of the wheatears supplied by the 

 shepherds to deal with. 



About the date just named, or a little later, the 

 Rottingdean farmers began to forbid their shep- 

 herds engaging to supply the Brighton poulterers 

 with wheatears: the men, they said, were so much 

 occupied in going the rounds of their coops that 

 they neglected their proper work. The example 

 of these farmers spread over the downs, and their 

 action was, so far as I know, the real cause of the 

 somewhat sudden abandonment by the shepherds of 

 their ancient supplementary trade of catching wheat- 

 ears. That they no longer follow it is a cause of 

 profound regret to the poulterers, for the demand 

 still exists and must somehow be supplied. Fowlers 

 were engaged to go out and shoot and trap the birds 

 the best way they could, but the shot so injured 

 the delicate plump little bodies that this method 

 was discontinued. For some years past the big 

 poulterers have been compelled to engage the services 

 of the ordinary bird-catcher of the Brighton slums, 

 who takes the birds with the common clap-nets. 

 His method is to go out with a couple of " pals '' to 

 help and to spread his nets at the side of one of 

 the small solitary dew ponds on the hills. In very 

 dry hot weather there are always some wheatears 

 flitting and running about on the turf in the 

 neighbourhood of the pond, to which they go at 

 intervals to drink. The nets spread, the helpers 



