42 Wild Life in a Southern County 



ance of the broad silver disc with the figure of ' St. Gaarge ' 

 conquering the dragon. 



Everywhere across the hills traces of the old rabbit- 

 warrens may be found in the names of places. Warren 

 Farms, Warren Houses, &c, are common ; and the term 

 is often added to the names of the villages to distinguish 

 an outlying part of the parish. From the earthwork the 

 sites of four such warrens, now cultivated, can be seen 

 within the radius of as many miles. Babbits must have 

 swarmed on the downs in the olden times. In the season 

 when the couch and weeds are collected in heaps and 

 burned, the downs — were it not for the silence — might 

 seem the scene of a mighty conflict, the smoke of the 

 battle rolling along the slopes and hanging over the plains, 

 rising up from the hollows in dusky clouds. But the 

 cannon of the shadowy army give forth no thunderous 

 roar. The smouldering fires are not, of course, peculiar 

 to the hills, but the smoke shows so much more at that 

 elevation. 



At evening, if you watch the sunset from the top of 

 the rampart, as the red disc sinks to the horizon and the 

 shadows lengthen — the trees below and the old barn 

 throwing their shadows up the slope — the eye is deceived 

 by the position of the light, and the hill seems much 

 higher and steeper, looking down from the summit, than 

 it does at noonday. It is an optical delusion. Here on 

 the western side the grass is still dry — in the deep narrow 

 valleys behind the sun set long since over the earthwork 

 and ridge, and the dew is already gathering thickly on 

 the sward. 



A broad green track runs for many a long, long mile 

 across the downs, now following the ridges, now winding 

 past at the foot of a grassy slope, then stretching away 



