236 BABBICOMBE TO HOPE'S NOSE. 



hundred feet high. A wide expansive prospect is on 

 every side. We will sit on one of these knobs of the 

 white limestone, that are everywhere cropping out 

 from the turf, all studded with incrusting lichens, 

 white, gray, black, and orange, and like swivel-guns 

 rotate on our pivots. 



Look northward ; down, down, the cliff-wall descends 

 perpendicularly for a hundred feet or more, then slopes 

 away, a wilderness of shrubbery, with great blocks of 

 gray rock projecting. Here, just before us, is a vast 

 buttress, upright, wall-sided, and round, like a battered 

 castle-tower of the olden time ; and, like it, sheeted, 

 almost from base to battlement, with glossy ivy. 

 Ferns arch out from its crevices, and masses of the 

 curious navelwort, with its coin-like succulent leaves, 

 of unusual size. 



Ha ! like a stone from a ^ling, out shoots a large 

 bird from the rocky wall just beneath our feet ; and 

 with a loud coo another quickly follows. Their form 

 and size, their manner of flight, and their colour, seen 

 clearly enough as we look down on their backs blue, 

 with a conspicuous white rump, and black barred 

 wings announce them to be rock-doves, the indu- 

 bitable stock and original race of our domestic pigeons. 

 Away they go on loud whirring wing, and shoot across 

 the cove to the inaccessible ledges and clefts of yonder 

 precipice. It is by no means a common bird with us ; 

 but a few pairs every season haunt the tall cliffs and 

 caves in this neighbourhood. 



How noble is that huge promontory of many-tinted 



