SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME 



143 



ledge overlooking the easier slopes where the gulls breed. 

 Then the strange bird writhing her long neck from her nest 

 makes an odd contrast with the white troops of sitting 

 gulls. 



Guillemots and puffins spin to and fro between their 

 breeding-places and the waters ; and the hollower indentations 

 of the cliff-face have often a pair or two of rock-doves, which 

 skim across the gulfs with the familiar flight of house-pigeons, 

 and nest with the shasrs in the caves. Hawks of more than 



one kind add another contrast to the bird life of the seaside 

 crags. Kestrels nest in small caverns screened by rock- 

 plants and overgrowing ivy ; buzzards sail on broad wings 

 round the pinnacles and over the cliff-tops, mewing above 

 the murmur of the sea ; and the rarer and fiercer peregrines 

 may skim in strong flight about the rock-faces, hunting for 

 rabbits and young birds. Pairs of lean ravens guard their 

 peculiar haunt among the crags, and drive off every other 

 bird that comes near, in the early weeks of spring before their 

 young are flown. The red-billed chough still breeds on some 

 of the Irish cliffs, and lingers here and there in Wales and 

 England; but in most places its haunts are now filled by 

 crowds of cackling jackdaws. 



