INTRODUCTION. XXXV11 



of the harbour called "Stiff key freshes" (where the 

 river " Stew" falls into the sea) many rarities in the 

 shape of wild fowl and other littoral species, have been 

 procured from time to time by the punt-gunners. 



Hunstanton, alone, throughout this wide extent of 

 sea-board, affords an exception to the unvarying char- 

 acter of the Norfolk "meals;" and here, fortunately, 

 owing to the encroachments of the sea at St. Edmund's 

 point, a solid barrier is presented to the waves by a 

 short but extremely interesting range of chalk cliffs,'* 

 flanked on either side by the brown water-worn 

 formation of the carstone or lower greensand. In the 

 deep fissures of these chalk precipices large numbers 

 of Starlings rear their young as well as Swifts (Cypselus 

 apus) and Jackdaws in smaller numbers ; and a few 

 Starlings, and many Sand-martins, excavate their nest- 

 holes in the upper portions of the carstone cliff, 

 where, as usual, the Sparrow occasionally usurps 

 possession. The Peregrine, however, (Falco peregrinus) 

 no longer sweeps over the edge to its " eyrie " in the 

 same wide clefts of the chalk, where the nest of the 

 " Gentil Falcon " had been found from " time imme- 

 morial," as recorded by Hunt, and whence, in former 

 days, "eyesses" were doubtless taken to replenish 

 the "mews" at the Hall. With the Peregrines are 

 gone also the Common Guillemots (Uria troile), of 

 which a few pairs still lingered in their sea-girt 

 home till within the last thirty or forty summers, 



* For the geologist the rocks at Hunstanton have a special 

 interest owing to the fine stratum of red chalk, which, resting on 

 the carstone, underlies the white chalk, and commencing in a thin 

 red line at the extremity nearest the Railway Station, soon attains 

 a thickness of about four feet, and extends nearly a mile to the 

 further end of the cliff. This stratum is said to be peculiar to the 

 counties of Norfolk, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, and its colour 

 is attributed by most geologists to peroxide of iron. 



