The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 | Page 6

fluted
sides, 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 different 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, etc., 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 considerable perquisite
to the shepherds that take them; and though many are to be seen to my
knowledge all the winter through in many parts of the south of England.
The most intelligent shepherds tell me that some few of these birds
appear on the downs in March, and then withdraw to breed probably in
warrens and stone-quarries: now and then a nest is ploughed up in a
fallow on the downs under a furrow, but it is thought a rarity. At the
time of wheat-harvest they begin to be taken in great numbers; are sent
for sale in vast quantities to Brightelmstone and Tunbridge; and appear
at the tables of all the gentry that entertain with any degree of elegance.
About Michaelmas they retire and are seen no more till March. Though
the birds are, when in season, in great plenty on the south downs round
Lewes, yet at East Bourn, which is the eastern extremity of those
downs, they abound much more. One thing is very remarkable, that
though in the height of the season so many hundreds of dozens are

taken, yet they never are seen to flock; and it is a rare thing to see more
than three or four at a time; so that there must be a perpetual flitting
and constant progressive succession. It does not appear that any
wheat-ears are taken to the westward of Houghton Bridge, which stands
on the