NovEjrcEU 18, 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
131 
with not a sound beside, except when flew 
Aloft the Lai)wing, or the pray curlew, 
Who with wild notes my fancied power defied. 
And mocked the dreams of solitary pride.” 
The farms on the outskirts of the heaths have mostly a 
light of pasturage attached to them, and their occupiers are 
generally dock-masters, and keep from dve to twenty and 
more score of sheep. It is a beautiful sight to see these 
docks approach their feeding-grounds from dilierent points, 
and separate into lines among the furze bushes, looking at a 
distance like so many net-works of silver. A shepherd and 
dog attends each. The latter is shaggy, large, and docile, 
very useful in keeping the dock apart, very expert in singling 
out intruders, and he will collect the sheep together, and 
follow his master wherever he may incline to lead them. 
Shepherds themselves are generally morose and taciturn, 
they are also long-sighted, as is the case with sailors, and 
most persons accustomed to view distant objects. I re¬ 
member, a few years since, when some North American 
Indians were on a visit at Plashet House, the residence of 
the late Elizabeth Fry, of Lyiton, they descried minutely 
objects in the rigging of the vessels passing up and down 
the Thames, when no other persons present could discern 
them, and it was not till a telescope had been procured that 
the facts could be verided. 
Hares are not numerous, but rabbits abound, and do 
much damage to the crops of the farmer; indeed, so rapid 
is tlieir increase, that it is necessary to have occasional 
battues to destroy them. They usually sell from Is. to l.s. 2d. 
per couple. A pair of these in “a ship-pie ” is a welcome 
treat after a walk on a frosty morning. By virtue of the 
game laws, game is preserved on our heaths, greatly to the 
annoyance of the public, to the injury of the agriculturist, 
and to the demoralisation of the labouring classes. Hawks 
are often shot or entrapped by the game keepers. Rooks 
and stai-lings frequent in flocks the more open tracts, to feed 
on woiTus, insects, and larvfe; they mix with the sheep, 
probably because the tread of the latter disturbs what they 
are searching for; but should a crow make his appearance, 
the shepherd becomes alarmed, as he thinks that this bird 
portends death or disease among liis flock; certain it is that 
during the lambing season, he is sure to be hovering about. 
Lapwings congregate in numbers, but a single pair will 
often separate from the rest to hatch their young at a dis¬ 
tance, and should a stranger approach their haunt they will 
sail around him, and greet him with their wUd cries. ITovers, 
redwings, and fieldfares, are to be met \vith. The fern-owl 
or goat-sucker, frequents the hedge-rows; cuckoos, in the 
spring, are calling to each other throughout the day, and 
lai'ks are abundant, often damaging the young com by 
drawing up the blades aud feeding on tlie sprouted kernels. 
There is no lack of the smaller birds, as stonechats, whin- 
chats, yellowhammers, greater aud lesser redpoles, green¬ 
finches, goldfinches, ifcc. Our village boys capture these by 
means of a bird-lime which they make by chewing the bai'k 
of the holly-tree. 
The configuration of our heaths is undulating; the soil, 
sand and gravel; and there are abundant evidences of their 
having once formed the bed of the ocean. The history of 
the gravel is a desideratum. Its colour, for the most part, 
is red, and aboimding wth flints, which are small and 
rounded, showing them to have been waterworn. Where in 
the world so many flints could have come from, is a puzzle 
yet to be solved; certainly not from the beds of chalk in 
our neighbourhood, for these ai'e free from them. The 
belief that they were originally marine vegetables seems 
probable, not only from their exterior form, but also from 
their interior structure—numbers, if broken, display the 
stem, branches, and organised parts of plants in great per¬ 
fection, and sometimes the plant itself will separate entme 
from its matrix. A ddigent and scientific investigator might 
soon collect a senes of these fossil plants, and perhaps be 
able to name and classify them. Aud if to the study of 
these he would add that of the various rounded fragments 
of rocks, and could decide on their original habitat, he 
would go far to establish the laws of tides and currents. 
The veins and markings in many of the red Hints, prove 
that the colouring-matter must have entered them when they 
were in a pulpy state ; these Hints, if polished, often vie in 
beauty with more costly gems. The sifting of stones from 
the gravel is the work of our unemployed poor; aud the 
materials thus raised are used for the repair of the public 
roads. Gryphites, echinites, belemnites, madrepores, coals, 
Ac., are found in the gravel. The sands vary in colour and 
texture. Bog-earth is found in the water-com’ses and round 
the margins of ponds; and the most interesting, if not the 
most useful strata of all, is the crag, which lies under the 
gravels, at various depths, being of different thiclmesses, 
and often cropping out on the surface. This is a shell 
deposit, fonned, apparently, at two distinct periods, and con¬ 
sists of the upper, or red crag, and the lower, or coralline' 
crag. On entering a crag-pit (which is generally formed by 
cutting down a foot of a hill) you have before you a perpen¬ 
dicular wall from ten to fifteen feet high, bristling all over 
with the projecting points of shells ; and here an Owen, or 
an Agassiz, might dive and delve to his heart’s content. It 
furnishes amusement for the visitor, specimens for the 
collector, and matter for tlie scientific inquirer. About four 
hundred species and varieties of these fossil shells have 
been already discovered. My own collection consists of 
about that number, besides a great variety of other organic 
remains, as corals, zoophites, foraminifera, teeth, Ac., all of 
marine origin. The shells vary in size from a pin’s-head to 
that of a pony’s hoof; and the teeth, from a barleycorn to 
that of a man’s hand. In addition to these, there are occa¬ 
sionally to be met with the teeth of the elephant, rhinoceros, 
and bear; and it is a curious fact, that out of every hun¬ 
dred of the marine fossils, sixty of them are now extinct, or 
tlieir representatives are to be found only in tropical seas. 
The corals must have been produced under a like tempera¬ 
ture ; thus proving that, at the time of their formation, a 
totally different order of things prevailed. What secrets, 
then, does this single drawer in the geological cabinet unfold 
to us? It is a page in nature, written in physical characters 
on the earth’s changes, itself not being obliterated by time. 
A careful investigation of these phenomena, and a comp.ari- 
son of extinct with living species, would serve to coirect 
theory, and enlarge the bounds of om- scientific knowledge. 
S. I’., Hiis/imere, 
SPANISH V. SHANGHAE EOAYLS AND 
GOLDEN PHEASANTS. 
Though my experience did not lead me to the conclusion 
to which you had arrived, viz., “ That two or three fowls by 
themselves will consume proportionately more food in a 
day than when a great number are fed together;” yet, “ as 
fair play is a jewel,” and as you considered this an objection 
to the fairness of my trial, I have lost no time Iti putting 
the things to the test, and the results which I now enclose 
you, prove that your’s is theory and nothing more. You 
will see, that in confinement the fowls eat rather less than 
when with a free range; and I think this is natural enough, 
as in confinement they are not as healthy as when they are 
able to find insects, and grasses, which they know assist 
digestion, and promote health. The Gold Pheasants were 
in the moult, and did not lay. 
As for your second objection, I certainly did not weigh 
all mine, nor can I send you the weights of the “full 
grown ” fowls, but I know that the weiglit of the Spanish ( 
Cockerels I quoted, varied from 51t). lloz. to CH). 3oz.; with j 
the Pidlets just under Olbs., which even, with the argument i 
lately adopted “in proportion to size,” will give a greater 
weight than that of the fowls on which your trials were 
made, the average weight of which, I find to have been 
31bs. Ooz. Many of your's must, therefore, be mere chickens, 
at least according to the weight of my Spanish chickens. 
I cannot end this discussion better than by quoting a 
letter from a friend of mine (a man of strict veracity), 
written from Devonshire, where the fowls do not probably 
enjoy the over “keen appetites bestowed upon their brethren 
in the north,” relative to a Cochin-China Cockerel, hatched 
iMarch 3rd; and mind, this is the opinion of a former 
C. China fancier. 
“Fine fellow as he is, however, Re certainly does eat 
enormously. One day I weighed his food, which was 
chiefiy barley-meal mixed wdth milk and water, of which lie 
