RECOLLECTIONS. 3 



Sussex. It is true that such countless myriads of 

 water-birds are not found here during the summer 

 months as at Down Patrick-Head,* or on the 

 Stags of Broadhaven,f but certain members of the 

 great natatorial division are met with during the 

 breeding-season on different parts of the coast be- 

 tween Brighton and Hastings, and several of the 

 rarer species occur during the winter, occasionally 

 indeed in such numbers as to furnish ample occu- 

 pation, and many a valuable acquisition, to the 

 sportsman and to the collector. 



But although Sussex cannot pretend to vie with 

 the distant shores of the Sister Island, or the 

 north of Scotland, in the number of hyperborean 

 visitors, there is perhaps no portion of the United 

 Kingdom that contains a greater variety of the 

 summer birds of passage. A glance at the map 

 will suffice to show you that our proximity to the 

 continent, and the long line of shore from Kent to 

 Hampshire, are favourable to an immigration of 

 those feathered tribes, which, having passed the 

 winter in the olive groves of Spain, or on the 



* A lofty, isolated rock, near the mainland, on the pre- 

 cipitous coast of Mayo. A regular Babel of sea-birds dur- 

 ing the month of May. 



f A cluster of small islands outside the natural haven of 

 the same name. 



B2 



