284 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



blaming tlie wrong animal, but he stuck to it that 

 it was the fiuttermouses and not the mouses that 

 stole the bacon, and finally asserted that he had 

 actually seen them at it. 



About this matter Gilbert White remarks, " The 

 notion that bats go down chimneys and gnaw men's 

 bacon, seems no improbable story." This reference 

 to White has served to remind me that one of the 

 most surprising instances of ignorance I have met 

 with in the downs was in an educated man. 



Readers of the Selborne Letters are familiar with 

 the name of Ringmer, the pretty, old Sussex village 

 in the neighbourhood of Lewes, whither the famous 

 naturalist used to make an annual journey on horse- 

 back. His visits were to his aunt Rebecca, the wife 

 of Henry Snooke, and the house they lived in is still 

 standing. The egregious Mr. Augustus Hare, in his 

 Sussex, speaking of Ringmer, reminds his readers that 

 it was from this village that White dated " several 

 of his stilted letters." 



During the summer of 1898, in the course of a 

 ramble on the downs, I made the acquaintance of a 

 gentleman who is a native, and had spent the sixty 

 odd years of his life in those parts. Both the man 

 and the name he bore interested me, the name being 

 a peculiar and a very ancient one at that spot. The 

 family is now impoverished and decayed, but there 

 was little sign of decay in my casual acquaintance, 

 despite his years. A straight wiry man, with alert 



