SOME SOUTHERN CLIFFS. 99 



both barrels before it had struck the lure. He missed it clean and the 

 next thing he realized was that Peregrine, Pigeon, and string were careering 

 along in safety a quarter of a mile out at sea. As two Peregrines were 

 subsequently seen upon the downs escorting three young ones in the middle 

 of July, it is to be presumed that these much afflicted birds eluded to the end 

 all the efforts made to destroy them, and gained a well-earned triumph over 

 their foes. 



With the Peregrines of Culver Cliff and Swanage I have been unlucky, 

 and, though I have reason to believe that they still frequent both these time- 

 honoured haunts, I have always had to content myself, so far as the Raptores 

 are concerned, with the contemplation of their feebler congener, the Kestrel. 

 It has been just the same with the Ravens ; I have had to put up with the 

 Jackdaw, and have never come across a Raven outside Cornwall, but they 

 are, nevertheless, reported at times, by trustworthy witnesses, from Beachy 

 Head. 



The birds that always present themselves in abundance, whichever cliffs 

 you visit, are the Herring-Gulls. The Beachy Head colony is distinguished 

 by the unusual simplicity of some of its members. It is now an open secret 

 among the boys of Eastbourne College that the Beachy Herring-Gulls fre- 

 quently nest upon the ground ! The youth who first discovered the fact 

 was known to be a good climber, and suspected of a distant connection with 

 Ananias. His return one day with a load of Gulls' eggs, and the announce- 

 ment that he had found them on the ground, merely confirmed his reputation 

 in both respects, and no one even took the trouble to go and test a statement 

 so obviously absurd. 



Some years later several boys, starting on a Sabbath day's journey, which 

 proved most disastrous to the Gulls, re-discovered the secret, and I was myself 

 induced to go and have a look at the nests. Needless to say, those I saw 

 were empty, the majority being a few feet up the cliff amongst loose boulders, 

 though several were actually on the shingle just at its base. Further on, 

 near Birling Gap, I saw two Gulls right down on the shore just above high- 

 water mark, and suggested that perhaps they were breeding there. To our 

 amazement, when we reached the spot, there was the nest with two eggs in it. 

 It was mostly of straw, and had a large bit of red flannel woven into it. At 

 Culver Cliff and Swanage I have found these Gulls' nests quite low down, but 

 none of them positively on the ground. 



From the foot of Beachy a reef of sunken rocks runs out to sea in a 

 slanting line, and at low tide I have shot the Purple Sandpiper at this point, 

 and heard of others being taken there. I also one day watched a Kingfisher 



H 2 



