about an inch, more or
less according to the size of the bulb; put all these, pretty
promiscuously, but pretty thickly, on the top of the box. Then stand off
and look at your architecture."

To its ordinary museum in the town Brighton has added the collection of
stuffed birds made by the late Mr. E. T. Booth, which he housed in a
long gallery in the road that leads to the Dyke. Mr. Booth, when he shot
a bird in its native haunts, carried away some of its surroundings in
order that the taxidermist might reproduce as far as possible its
natural environment. Hence every case has a value that is missing when
one sees merely the isolated stuffed bird. In one instance realism has
dictated the addition of a clutch of pipit's eggs found on the Bass
Rock, in a nest invisible to the spectator. The collection in the
Natural History Museum at South Kensington is of course more
considerable, and finer, but some of Mr. Booth's cases are certainly
superior, and his collection has the special interest of having been
made by one man.

[Sidenote: CRITICISM BY JUG]

Brighton has another very interesting possession in the collection of
old domestic pottery in the museum: an assemblage (the most entertaining
and varied that I know) of jugs and mugs, plates and ornaments, all
English, all quaint and characteristic too, and mostly inscribed with
mottoes or decorated with designs in celebration of such events as the
battle of Waterloo, or the discomfiture of Mr. Pitt, or a victory of Tom
Cribb. Others are ceramic satires on the drunkard's folly or the
inconstancy of women. Why are the potters of our own day so dull?
History is still being made, human nature is not less frail; but I see
no genial commentary on jug or dish. Is it the march of Taste?

CHAPTER XVIII

ROTTINGDEAN AND WHEATEARS

Ovingdean--Charles II.--The introduction of Mangel
Wurzel--Rottingdean as a shrine--Mr. Kipling's Sussex poem--Thomas
Fuller on the Wheatear--Mr. Hudson's description of the traps--The
old prosperous days for shepherds--Luring larks--A fight on the
beach--The town that failed.

Beyond Kemp Town's serene and silent line of massive houses is the new
road that leads to Rottingdean. The old road fell into the sea some few
years ago--the fourth or fifth to share that fate. But the pleasantest
way thither is on foot over the turf that tops the white cliffs.

By diverging inland between Brighton and Rottingdean, just beyon