WILD LIFE 89 



I have said that the only sea-bird that now breeds 

 on the cliffs along the southern edge of the South 

 Downs is the herring-gull. Their most interesting 

 colony is at Seaford Head, where I have observed 

 them during the last three summers. At that spot 

 they are not decreasing, and they have as neighbours 

 a large number of jackdaws, and two or three pairs of 

 kestrels. I have a suspicion that the hawks do not 

 consider that their eggs and young are safe from 

 attack by their big loud-voiced neighbours, as I occa- 

 sionally see a kestrel rise and furiously buffet the 

 gulls passing and repassing before its nest on the face 

 of the cliff. 



In the first week of June last I had the good 

 fortune to see the gulls at this spot in a new and 

 beautiful aspect. At the top of the cliff, where it is 

 about four hundred feet high, a quantity of earth has 

 fallen or crumbled away, leaving a gap about thirty 

 to forty feet deep, and into this I crept and placed 

 myself as near the edge as I could safely get. Lying 

 there perfectly still, the birds, which had been flying 

 up and down before me uttering their loud anxious 

 cries, began to settle on all the near projecting pieces 

 of chalk where they could watch me. By-and-by I 

 had twenty-four of them all perched close to me, 

 in pairs or small groups of three or four, some of 

 them standing on the chalk where it was partly over- 

 grown with patches of sea-pink, or thrift. The in- 

 tense whiteness of the sunlit chalk and rosy red of 



