CHAPTER XVII- 
PE CRU MS lS: 
THE study of ornithology may indeed be said to have been brought 
up-to-date when you can be transported to the scene of your researches in 
a motor bus! Yet to this climax of perfection has Eastbourne attained. 
Its motor ’bus will land you within five minutes’ walk from the Crumbles— 
that is to say, within five minutes of one of the best hunting-grounds in 
the whole of the British Isles. I mean, of course, for rarities. Quality, not 
quantity, must be the motto of the shooter over the Crumbles. He must have 
realized that vast and crowded mudflats do not of necessity mean rare birds. 
He must be wedded to the cult of the odd corner, must be prepared to bring 
home his gun unused, and prepared also to level it at a moment’s notice at 
almost any bird on the British list. I may add that the shooting over the 
Crumbles is not free, but is confined to a small party of about a dozen guns. 
To describe the place is almost to idealize the requirements of the collector. 
You have, inside an hour’s walk, a marsh with mud and reeds, shingle 
with brackish pools, and, surrounding the latter, bushes such as might shelter 
almost any Warbler under the sun. All this is found on a low-lying piece 
of ground, and above it a vast waste of shingle extends right away to 
Pevensey village, in the middle of the bay. It is not to be wondered at 
that with such variety of surface there is variety also to be met with 
amongst its birds. 
Most of my earlier expeditions to the Crumbles were made in company 
with Mr. A. H. Streeten, then a boy at the College. They were made in 
search of eggs, and many most enjoyable afternoons did we have there. For 
two whole seasons we hunted, on an average once a week, for the nest of a 
Ringed Plover. Several pairs were breeding, but, though we found the 
young birds more than once, we never could light upon an egg. We could 
not even decide in our own minds whether the nests were on the lower 
plateau, or whether the birds hatched out up above, and then escorted the 
young ones down to the pools. 
The following year Streeten’s young brother had joined us, and we took 
