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.
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