BEACHY HEAD IN THE BREEDING-SEASON. 107 



a disengaged partner of the opposite sex, the lat- 

 ter at once entering upon the performance of its 

 duties as spouse or parent, as the case may be. 



On my last visit to Beachy Head, I was much 

 struck by the watchful jealousy with which the 

 peregrines seemed to guard the particular cliff 

 more than 500 feet above the sea on a lofty 

 ledge of which their nest was situated, and which, 

 indeed, they evidently considered their own espe- 

 cial property : with the exception of a few jack- 

 daws who bustled out of the crevices below, all 

 the other birds which had now assembled on this 

 part of the coast for the breeding-season it being 

 about the middle of May seemed to respect the 

 territory of their warlike neighbours. The ad- 

 joining precipice, further westward, was occupied 

 by guillemots and razor-bills, who had deposited 

 their eggs, the former on the naked ledge, the 

 latter in the crannies in the face of the cliff. Here 

 the jackdaws appeared quite at their ease, their 

 loud, merry note being heard above every other 

 sound, as they flew in and out of the fissures 

 in the white rock, or sat perched on a pinnacle 

 near the summit, and leisurely surveyed the busy 

 crowd below. In a cliff still further to the west, 

 near Newhaven, another pair of peregrines have 

 also an eyrie, and an extensive colony of herring- 

 gulls is established, while in the same neighbour- 



