WILD LIFE ON THE SUSSEX DOWNS 



with her. The instinct is very wonderful, and the 

 tremendous journey thus accomplished is usually made 

 in a marvellously short space of time. In the case of 

 the peregrine the female is the bigger and more power- 

 ful bird than the male ; she is, beyond doubt, the 

 master, and it is possible that in these wanderings in 

 search of a husband some amount of compulsion, as 

 well as affection, is employed in bringing the new mate 

 to British shores. Peregrines, true aristocrats that 

 they are, are the greatest conservatives in the world. 

 They use the same nesting -place generation after 

 generation, and their eyries have been familiar to local 

 observers for centuries. 1 Of all birds of the South 

 Downs they are to me the most interesting. They are 

 by no means uncommon. I have seen a pair more than 

 once soaring about the cliff at Holywell, on the out- 

 skirts of Eastbourne, and not seldom while crossing 

 the downs I have come across them ; evidences of their 

 kills, the feathers of a slain woodpigeon, or even a 

 partridge, are not infrequent. 



Other Falconidce of the downs are the kestrel, to be 

 seen commonly, the sparrow-hawk occasionally, and the 

 hobby very rarely. Once, at least, within the last 

 eight years, a pair of hen harriers nested and reared 

 their young in a wild stretch of gorse with which I am 

 acquainted. This I take to be a very rare occurrence 

 in these parts, and I should have certainly doubted the 

 fact if I had not witnessed it with my own eyes. 

 These birds are decidedly rare in this neighbourhood, 

 though they may be seen occasionally on the adjacent 

 marshes of Pevensey and elsewhere. 



Among cliff denizens, gulls and jackdaws are, of 

 course, always in evidence. Both are very common. 



1 Where, however, as in the Sussex cliffs, they are constantly harried, 

 they will occasionally shift their nesting-places. 



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