THE CLIFFS AT SUNRISE 13 



The sea-fowl colony round the corner of the chalk 

 precipice had a sentinel gull watching the bay, to give 

 notice of any stranger approaching the point beyond 

 which the chalk precipices rise to face the sun. This 

 solitary white gull, flying at a great height above the 

 down, kept up an incessant clamour, which, without 

 causing the groups which were basking on the rocks to 

 leave their stations, made them uneasy and alert. The 

 Culver Cliff, like that on the opposite side of the island, 

 might well be named "Sun Corner." The heat and 

 light reflected from the 400 ft. of perpendicular white 

 wall fill the atmosphere with warmth and brightness. 

 All the birds were taking a quiet sun-bath, either on 

 the cliff or on the flat rocks below. Rock-pigeons 

 were sitting crooning to each other on a jutting ledge, 

 and a colony of cormorants were basking on a ridge of 

 turf which sloped back like a green roof from the 

 perpendicular cliff. Best of all, a pair of peregrine 

 falcons were quietly sitting not 300 ft. from the foot 

 of the crag, their black-and-white breasts, and dark- 

 blue wings and tails, even the eye and head, distinctly 

 visible with the glass as they faced the sun. They 

 were in no hurry to leave ; but after a few minutes 

 the pair launched themselves from the cliff and flew 

 with lightning speed round a projecting corner of the 

 rocks to some more secluded part of the precipice. A 

 whole family of ravens, six in number, were perched in 

 a grave and contemplative line on another part of the 

 precipice. The two old birds were watching a young 

 cormorant, which was sitting on a flat rock below them, 



