TOO A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



diving off these rocks into the little pools left by the receding tide. A Red- 

 necked Grebe has been captured not far off, and one can always count on the 

 presence of Rock-Pipits, Stonechats, and Wheatears in their season. I am 

 told also that this portion of the cliffs is frequented at times by the Black 

 Redstart, but I have once only had the luck to find it there myself. 



The Guillemots, which ought to frequent Beachy, but don't, may be found 

 at Swanage, if you go along the Durleston cliffs. From the top you can see 

 both Guillemots and Puffins riding on the waves, and even at that distance 

 you can distinguish the latter by the light colour of their cheeks. It is a 

 strange sight to see these Guillemots leave their ledges. You throw a stone 

 over the edge, and immediately out dash the birds, and, forming as they do 

 into a wedge-shaped phalanx, almost mathematically correct, they have an 

 odd, toy-soldier sort of appearance from above ; one might almost think they 

 were machines rather than birds. These Durleston cliffs are some of the 

 wildest that I know of in the south. One felt that a Peregrine or Chough 

 might turn up at any moment, but it was again a case of the Jackdaw and 

 the Kestrel. 



The chines that run down the cliffs on the Bournemouth side of Swanage 

 are garnished with luxuriant and unusual vegetation. They are frequented 

 by certain rare butterflies, and provide a perfect resting place for newly 

 arrived Warblers from the south ; but I think they lie outside the line of 

 the main migration, and they actually held only a few Whitethroats and 

 Willow-Wrens. 



When I first sat down to write this chapter I had visions of including 

 another most interesting bird amongst the denizens of my local cliff, and as a 

 specimen of the way in which one may be deceived by what appears quite trust- 

 worthy evidence, I will explain how nearly I came to crediting Beachy with 

 the possession of two Choughs' nests as recently as 1904. In May of that year 

 in fact, the very day after Morton found the Peregrines' nest another boy 

 entered my study with some eggs in his hand which he had taken from a 

 rabbit-hole on the cliff. He suggested that they were rather strange for 

 Jackdaws', and thought perhaps they were Choughs' ; I thought so too, 

 though I had never seen a Chough's egg. Rarities often come in couples, and 

 I seemed to scent another ornithological sensation. These eggs appeared 

 rather more oval than those of a Jackdaw, the blue colour was very pale, and 

 the spots small and very faint. The books tended to confirm our theory ; 

 but who ever got any positive information out of coloured plates of eggs ? 

 Thus matters remained in ambiguo for two days, when another boy walked 

 into my class-room for me to pass judgment on some eggs. He opened a box, 



