Bird Notes and News 



35 



by the collector, the man with a gun, 

 and the common egg-Hfter. Only this 

 spring the sohtary nestling of the Pere- 

 grine's eyrie was stolen away in spite of 

 the vigilance of a member of the Society 

 who has done the utmost that can be 

 done by a non-resident guardian. For- 

 tunately a clue was obtained two days 

 later. The Watcher, with the pohce, 

 motored to a village some six miles 

 away, and not only found the offenders, 

 but got back the young bird, and with 

 some difficulty and exertion placed it 

 once more under the care of the mother- 

 falcon ; she, after a moment or two of 

 doubt, recognised and joyfully fed her 

 nesthng. It was an achievement of 

 which the main actor may well be proud. 

 The promontory of Brean Down is 

 about a mile and a half long by a mile in 

 width. At the eastern angle are the 

 ruined fragments of a Roman fort ; on 

 the summit are traces of earthworks, 

 with what is beheved to have been a 

 British signaDing-station. Roman and 

 Briton passed away, and long after their 

 time modern miUtary authorities erected 

 a fort at the eastern extremity of the 

 peninsula, but this was destroyed by an 

 explosion and not rebuilt. " Fifty years 

 ago an ambitious project was set on foot 

 for transforming Brean into a channel 

 port. Its proximity to one of the trmik 

 railway Knes, and the depth of water 

 beyond the chff, tempted some specu- 

 lators to sink £36,000 in the construction 

 of a harbour. A pier was actually com- 

 menced, but a furious storm broke up 

 the unfinished work, and the scheme was 

 abandoned." (" Rambles in Somerset," 

 by G. W. and J. H. Wade, 1912). Thus 

 Nature herself seems to have stepped in 

 to preserve the last spur of the Mendips 

 for her own children ; and Brean Down 

 was happily left to the wild birds and 

 flowers, and to the rambler who wishes 



to share with them its pure air. and 

 its peaceful solitude. The collector, as 

 deadly a foe as commercial speculators, 

 is now to be held at bay, to the infinite 

 gain of the genuine ornithologist and 

 botanist. There are said to be a hundred 

 varieties of wild-flowers on the Down, 

 including one or two very rare species, 

 and it will be the effort of the Society 

 to preserve these as well as the birds from 

 the destructive tripper. 



Mr, Hudson's reference to the hill has 

 been mentioned. The passage must be 

 quoted further (from the chapter on " The 

 Strange and Beautiful Sheldrake " in 

 " Birds and Man ") in order to set forth 

 the more completely the charm of the 

 place and how well worthy it is to ask 

 tribute, or endowment, from lovers of 

 nature. 



" At the point where the Axe flows into 

 the Severn Sea stands Brean Down, a huge 

 isolated hill, the last of the Mendip range on 

 that side . . . Down at its foot, at the point 

 where it touches the mainland, close to the 

 mouth of the Axe, there is a farmhouse, and 

 the farmer is the tenant of the entire hill, 

 and uses it as a sheep-walk. The sheep and 

 rabbits and birds are the only inhabitants. 

 I remember a delightful experience I had 

 one cold, windy, but very bright spring 

 morning near the farmhouse. There is 

 there, at a spot where one is able to ascend 

 the steep hill, a long strip of rock that looks 

 hke the wall of a gigantic ruined castle, 

 rough and black, draped with ancient ivy, 

 and crowned with furze and bramble and 

 thorn. Here, coming out of the cold wind 

 to the shelter of this giant ivy-draped black 

 wall, I stood still to enjoy the sensations of 

 warmth and a motionless air, when high 

 above appeared a swift-moving little cloud 

 of Linnets, seemingly blown across the sky 

 by the gale ; but quite suddenly, when 

 directly over me, the birds all came straight 

 down, to drop like a shower of small stones 

 into the great masses of ivy and furze and 

 bramble. And no sooner had they settled, 

 vanishing into that warm and windless 

 greenery, than they simultaneously burst 

 into such a concert of sweetest wild hnnet 



