THE CLIFFS AT SUNRISE 15 



their own full-grown brood on the cliff. The probable 

 explanation of this complicated manoeuvre is that the 

 ravens were quite aware that if frightened the cormorant 

 would pick up the fish and dive with it out of their 

 reach. Hence they adopted the trick constantly 

 practised by watch-snatchers in town, in which one 

 hustles the victim, while the other seizes his property. 

 On the opposite corner of the island, by the Fresh- 

 water precipices, the rock-fowl are more numerous and 

 of more kinds than those which haunt the Culver Cliffs. 

 Only, if the visitor would see them all he must keep 

 early hours, and be in his boat under the cliffs before 

 daybreak. Long before sunrise, the gulls are awake, 

 and uttering a hundred quaint calls and cries, laughing 

 like children, mewing like kittens, whistling and 

 whispering, screaming and crying, though no human 

 footstep has trodden on the sand since last night's tide 

 smoothed and pressed it, and bordered the damp edge 

 of the sea-garden with curving wreaths of weed. 



There are few better places for watching the sea-fowl 

 than the cliffs of Freshwater. Not where the chalk 

 presents its strongest face to the sea ; for there the 

 sheer crag denies a foothold not only to the birds, but 

 even to the creeping samphire. But when the sun 

 rises from the sea and flushes the more broken parts 

 of the cliff, they may be seen in hundreds ; rows of 

 puffins in neat white waistcoats and black coats, like 

 well-drilled City waiters ; black solemn cormorants ; 

 guillemots and razor-bills ; and long-winged, graceful 

 gulls. As the red disc leaves the water, the gulls 



