CHAPTER IX. 



ON CRAG AND SEA-CLIFF. 



THE bird-life of the inland crags nowadays is 

 comparatively limited, but what it lacks in 

 numbers is to some extent made up in interest. 

 Time was when the Golden Eagle bred on some 

 of these inland precipices of the northern shires; 

 when the Raven and the Buzzard made them their 

 home. For the purpose of the present work we 

 propose to glance at the few birds that frequent 

 the various crags and rocks — chiefly of limestone 

 and millstone i'rit — of South Yorkshire and North 

 Derbyshire. They may be taken as typical of 

 many similar localities in the northern shires. It 

 would certainly be difficult to find more grandly 

 romantic scenery than is contained in the district of 

 the limestone rocks of the Peak — in such spacious 

 valleys as Dove Dale, Monsal Dale, and Millers 

 Dale, or in such savage glens as are in the vicinity 

 of Castleton. As examples of the crags of millstone 

 o"rit we have the noble ranoe of rocks known as 

 Wharncliffe, that crest the valleys like a series of 

 colossal bulwarks, below which is a sea of rolling 

 wood and bracken. It is hard to believe that so 



