winter he had had two lambs, each a month old, killed by a fox which ate
the heads and left the bodies; the fox always eating the head first,
severing it, whether of a hare, rabbit, duck, or the tender lamb, and
"covering"--digging a hole and burying--that which he cannot finish. To
the buried carcase the fox returns the next night before he kills again.

His dog was a cross with a collie: the old sheep-dogs were shaggier and
darker. Most of the sheep-dogs now used were crossed with the collie,
either with Scotch or French, and were very fast--too fast in some
respects. He was careful not to send them much after the flock,
especially after feeding, when, in his own words, the sheep had "best
walk slow then, like folk"--like human beings, who are not to be
hastened after a meal. If he wished his dog to fetch the flock, he
pointed his arm in the direction he wished the dog to go, and said,
"Put her back." Often it was to keep the sheep out of turnips or wheat,
there being no fences. But he made it a practice to walk himself on the
side where care was needed, so as not to employ the dog unless
necessary.

There is something almost Australian in the wide expanse of South Down
sheepwalks, and in the number of the flocks, to those who have been
accustomed to the small sheltered meadows of the vales, where forty or
fifty sheep are about the extent of the stock on many farms. The land,
too, is rented at colonial prices, but a few shillings per acre, so
different from the heavy meadow rents. But, then, the sheep-farmer has
to occupy a certain proportion of arable land as well as pasture, and
here his heavy losses mainly occur.

There is nothing, in fact, in this country so carefully provided against
as the possibility of an English farmer becoming wealthy. Much downland
is covered with furze; some seems to produce a grass too coarse, so that
the rent is really proportional. A sheep to an acre is roughly the
allowance.

From all directions along the roads the bleating flocks concentrate at
the right time upon the hillside where the sheep-fair is held. You can
go nowhere in the adjacent town except uphill, and it needs no hand-post
to the fair to those who know a farmer when they see him, the stream of
folk tender thither so plainly. It rains, as the shepherd said it would;
the houses keep off the drift somewhat in the town, but when this
shelter is left behind, the sward of the hilltop seems among the clouds.

The descendi