Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/368

338 Mr. Hudson has wandered over these downs with his acquired natural history knowledge, an open mind, and his field-glass. He has described much of what he saw, and a good deal of what he thought, and he has regarded Nature through his own spectacles, and introduced remarkably little of other people's theories. Consequently he has produced a most readable book, the style of which is in unison with the quiet and lorn country which he writes about.

We read that the Long-eared Owl frequented, "and probably bred, in the thorn, holly, and furze-patches among the South Downs until recently"; and he refers to what in humanity has been called "pre-natal suggestion," as exhibited in a lamb with an Owl-like face, which lived for a few days only. He also gives some quite startling facts as to the quantity of Wheatears formerly destroyed by the shepherds at the instigation and remuneration of the poulterers, and truly observes:—"It is not fair that it should be killed merely to enable London stockbrokers, sporting men, and other gorgeous persons who visit the coast, accompanied by ladies with yellow hair, to feed every day on 'Ortolans' at the big Brighton hotels." Ultra advocates of the theory of mimicry will find some remarks worthy of consideration respecting the Common Snail (Helix nemoralis). The shell of this species is on the downs mostly of one type, the ground colour being yellow, or yellowish white, with broad black longitudinal bands, and "often startles a person by its curiously close resemblance to a small portion of a highly-coloured Adder's coil. This chance resemblance to a dangerous creature does not, however, serve the Snail as a protection from his principal enemies—the Thrushes. Wherever there is a patch of furze, there you will find the 'Thrushes' anvil,' usually a flint half, or nearly quite, buried in the soil a few feet away from the bushes, and all round the anvil the turf is strewn with shattered shells."

book is the narrative of a useful and successful life, passed for the greater, and certainly for the probationary period, in that administrative forcing-house where so many reputations