The common Whin, Furze, or Gorse, is very nearly as perfect an example of thorniness and spininess. The Southdown sheep do not seem to injure it on those beautiful Sussex downs so famous for succulent mutton, yet in the early spring, or in a very wet season, one often finds in the grass at the foot of the bush (or even in the bush itself) small shoots which would be taken at first sight as belonging to some other plant. These little shoots are grey with hairs and have soft trefoil leaves which are quite unprotected, for their spines are quite soft. They are probably seldom eaten, for most of them are in the shelter of the old spiny bushes. Yet even the old bushes can be used as fodder for sheep if they are crushed and ground up so as to break the thorns and spines. The Gorse is a very hardy plant, and is said to be only out of flower "when kissing is out of fashion" (see p. 100). There is still some uncertainty as to the exact way in which animals set to work when they are eating thorny or spiny bushes. This makes the arrangement of the thorns sometimes a little difficult to follow. Moreover it is often not so much the leaves as the juicy bark in winter and early spring that is required. Sometimes everything above ground is eaten down. Rabbits, for instance, do not as a rule touch the Hawthorn, yet Mr. Hamilton says, "The second winter after planting was very severe and this hedge was eaten down to the very ground by rabbits. For about 600 yards I do not think that a single plant was missed."[83] In frost and snow almost every plant is attacked by rabbits, and indeed by any grazing animal. [83] Mr. Thomas Hamilton, _Researches by Lanarkshire Teachers_, 1902-3. Remembering that it is very often the young juicy shoots that are sought after, it is quite easy to see why the young Rose suckers and shoots from the base of the stem fairly bristle with long and short prickles. These latter are generally straight, not curved like those of the long arching branches which are supposed to hook themselves on the branches of the surrounding trees. The young light-coloured branches of the cultivated Gooseberry are flexible, and hang over in such a way as to make it difficult for an animal to reach the bark: a cow or sheep, if it wished to eat these branches, would begin at the hanging tip and make a sort of upward tearing jerk while its tongue gathered the branch into its mouth. If one copies this with the hand it is easy to see how the length and arrangement of the prickles and the flexible nature of the spray would make such a proceeding on the cow's part most uncomfortable.