The sparrow-hawk may be caught napping on some favourite perch, as on
a stunted tree, in a sheltered nook. The partridge covey may be seen
for a moment, as the birds revel in the powdery soil, roofed by an
overhanging ledge--seeing you, they go whizzing off amid a little cloud
of dust. In the dead herbage a wily old cock pheasant crouches, who
long since denied himself the luxuries and the dangers of social life
in the big woodlands: he crouches as he sees you, but not so quickly
that you may not note the sinking of his glossy neck. Two or three
rabbits scuttle off to the doors of their burrows. Through the bushes
a hare steals away. No chalk-pit is complete without a rabbit-burrow,
a blackbird, and a robin. If hounds came more often to the chalk-pits
they would save themselves many a blank hour. There is no peace for the
fox in the coverts, but the old chalk-pit is as quiet as a church.
* * * * *