e. You can always see two or three
on the Downs in autumn, but the shepherd said years ago he had heard of
one man catching seventy dozen in a day.

Perhaps such wholesale catches were the cause of the comparative
deficiency at the present day, not only by actual diminution of numbers,
but in partially diverting the stream of migration. Tradition is very
strong in birds (and all animated creatures); they return annually in
the face of terrible destruction, and the individuals do not seem to
comprehend the danger. But by degrees the race at large becomes aware of
and acknowledges the mistake, and slowly the original tracks are
deserted. This is the case with water-fowl, and even, some think, with
sea-fish.

There was not so much game on the part of the hills he frequented as he
had known when he was young, and with the decrease of the game the foxes
had become less numerous. There was less cover as the furze was ploughed
up. It paid, of course, better to plough it up, and as much as an
additional two hundred acres on a single farm had been brought under the
plough in his time. Partridges had much decreased, but there were still
plenty of hares: he had known the harriers sometimes kill two dozen a
day.

Plenty of rabbits still remained in places. The foxes' earths were in
their burrows or sometimes under a hollow tree, and when the word was
sent round the shepherds stopped them for the hunt very early in the
morning. Foxes used to be almost thick. He had seen as many as six
(doubtless the vixen and cubs) sunning themselves on the cliffs at
Beachy Head, lying on ledges before their inaccessible breeding-places,
in the face of the chalk.

At present he did not think there were more than two there. They
ascended and descended the cliff with ease, though not, of course, the
straight wall or precipice. He had known them fall over and be dashed to
pieces, as when fighting on the edge, or in winter by the snow giving
way under them. As the snow came drifting along the summit of the Down
it gradually formed a projecting eave or cornice, projecting the length
of the arm, and frozen.

Something like this may occasionally be seen on houses when the
partially melted snow has frozen again before it could quite slide off.
Walking on this at night, when the whole ground was white with snow, and
no part could be distinguished, the weight of the fox as he passed a
weak place caused it to give way, and he could not save himself. Last