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glance must suffice. Thus, swallows were formerly supposed to 
gather together in “ lumps ” and fall into the water, and there 
pass the winter in torpitude — a most unhealthy practice. 
Dippers lay their eggs under water. The eagle is the only bird 
which can look in the eye of the sun. I suppose all other birds 
carry the conventional piece of smoked glass tucked away under 
their wing for this purpose. The cuckoo changes in the winter 
to a hawk. The hoopoe is unlucky, and in Swedefi presages war. 
The wall creeper only lays its eggs in skulls. The crow, “ the 
great black crow,” lives for “ a hundred years and mo’.” 
I suppose nearly every district has some superstitions 
peculiar to itself and I think a full list would be most interesting 
reading, but I must conclude this extract from my own list with 
one about the bernicle goose. “ It is held,” says Carew, “ that 
the Barnacle breedeth under water on such ships sides, as have 
beene verie long at Sea, hanging there by the Bill, until his full 
growth dismisse him to be a perfect fowle, and for proof, hereof, 
many little things like birds, are ordinarily found in such places, 
but I cannot heare any man speake of having seene them ripe.” 
I have seen a good many barnacles, but have never yet seen the 
variety mentioned by Carew “ like a bird,” nor, to the best of 
my knowledge, has anyone yet seen them “ ripe ” ; but many 
years ago this was a popularly accepted theory and the name 
of barnacle has still adhered to the birds whose offspring are so 
capricious. 
Arthur Hext Harvey. 
5, Trewartha Place, Penzance. 
CISSBURY. 
[NE dull August afternoon last summer, I found myself 
walking along a country lane towards the Downs 
behind Worthing. The hedge-sparrows were making 
a loud and vulgar chattering in the hedgerows, while 
swifts flew low over the fields to catch their meal of flies. I 
still pursued my way, the lane now slightly rising and fast 
becoming nought but a foot track. After passing through a 
copse, the downs opened out before me, sweeping away up to 
Cissbury itself. After toiling uphill for about a mile among 
furze bushes, rabbit burrows, and large bits of chalk, the only 
tiling which breaks the silence being the bell of the leader of a 
flock of sheep, a deep ditch is reached and beyond this a mound. 
On climbing the mound we see that it encloses an area of about 
sixty acres, on the very top of a hill. This is the Roman camp 
of Cissbury, or Cissa’s beorg, one of the most complete in 
existence. Now looking on the vast panorama stretched around 
and below us, on the extreme west we see the tall spire of 
