PEVENSEY BAY. 11 



rally used as sheep-walks ; but its character 

 changes at the mouths of the rivers, and for many 

 miles of their previous course, the rich pastures 

 dotted with horned cattle, and flat arable tract ad- 

 joining, varied with occasional willow and alder 

 trees, mark the course of the streams, as they wind 

 through the naked Downs on their way to the 

 Channel. 



After passing the bold promontory of Beachy 

 Head, the loftiest precipice of which is said to be 

 upwards of six hundred feet in height a favourite 

 breeding^station of guillemots and razor-bills 

 the cliffs rapidly diminish until we reach East- 

 bourne, where the South Downs appear to termi- 

 nate, and a wide-spreading bed of shingle forms 

 the flat, monotonous coast for many miles to the 

 eastward, in the direction of Bexhill. Here ex- 

 tend the shores of Pevensey Bay, which were de- 

 fended, during the war, by a long line of stunted 

 round towers, that look like wind-mills deprived of 

 all their upper works. On this wild beach the 

 ring- dotterel, or stone-runner as it is frequently 

 termed, deposits three eggs, which can scarcely 

 be distinguished from the surrounding pebbles, 

 and many species of terns haunt it in great num- 

 bers during the summer months. But amid this 

 barren waste, like an oasis in a desert, a cluster of 

 green, furze- covered hillocks suddenly appears, 



