NATURAL HISTOEY OP SELBOENE. 121 
and regular hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air of vegetative 
dilation and expansion 
Or was there ever a time when these immense masses of 
calcareous matter were thrown into fermentation by some adventitious 
moisture ; were raised and leavened into such shapes by some plastic 
power ; and so made to swell and heave their broad backs into the sky 
so much above the less animated clay of the wild below ] 
By what I can guess from the admeasurements of the hills that 
have been taken round my house, I should suppose that these hills 
surmount the wild at an average at about the rate of five hundred feet. 
One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : from the westward till 
you get to the river Adur all the flocks have horns, and smooth white 
faces, and white legs, and a hornless sheep is rarely to be seen ; but as 
soon as you pass that river eastward, and mount Beeding Hill, all the 
flocks at once become^ hornless, or as they call them, poll-sheep ; and 
have, moreover, black faces with a white tuft of wool on their foreheads, 
and speckled and spotted legs, so that you would think that the flocks 
of Laban were pasturing on one side of the stream, and the variegated 
breed of his son-in-law Jacob were cantoned along on the other. And 
this diversity holds good respectively on each side from the valley of 
Bramber and Beeding to the eastward, and westward all the whole 
length of the downs. If you talk with the shepherds on this subject, 
they tell you that the case has been so from time immemorial ; and 
smile at your simplicity if you ask them whether the situation of 
these two diflcrent breeds might not be reversed? However, an 
intelligent friend of mine near Chichester is determined to try the 
experiment ; and has this autumn, at the hazard of being laughed at, 
introduced a parcel of black-faced hornless rams among his horned 
western ewes. The black-faced poll-sheep have the shortest legs and 
the finest wool. 
As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at so late a season 
of the year, I was determined to keep as sharp a look-out as possible so 
near the southern coast, with respect to the summer short-winged birds 
of passage. We make great inquiries concerning the withdrawing of 
the swallow kind, without examining enough into the causes why this 
tribe is never to be seen in winter ; for, entre nous, the disappearing of 
the latter is more marvellous than that of the former, and much more 
unaccountable. The hirundines, if they please, are certainly capable of 
migration, and yet no doubt are often found in a torpid state ; but 
redstarts, nightingales, white-throats, black-caps, &c. &c., are very ill 
provided for long flights ; have never been once found, as I ever heard 
of, in a torpid state, and yet can never be supposed, in such troops, from 
year to year to dodge and elude the eyes of the curious and inquisitive, 
which from day to day discern the other small birds that are known to 
abide our winters. But, notwithstanding all my care, I saw nothing 
like a summer bird of passage ; and, what is more strange not one 
wheat-ear,* though they abound so in the autumn as to be a consider- 
* See Letter XXXIX to Pennant, p 80 ; and note. Eighty-four dozen are said 
to have been taken in a single day ; and Pennant states, that about Eastbourne 
one thousand eight hundred and forty dozen were taken annually. 
