Cornish Cliffs in Spring 49 



thoroughly appropriate to the lord of these sea- 

 beaten crags. 



Large and imposing though the buzzard appears 

 upon the wing, this cumbrous hawk seldom dares 

 to make more than a pretence of resisting him if 

 their interests clash. The kestrel is a lesser marauder 

 which is common on these flowery cliffs ; there is a 

 strange fascination in watching from above its out- 

 spread wings glide slowly round the butt of a crag 

 and hang motionless above the waves below. It 

 seems as if the attraction of gravity were not to that 

 remote floor of the sea, but to the firm rock close 

 by its side. The gallant ruddiness of the kestrel's 

 eggs, nested in some dark cranny in an ivied scarp 

 makes an attractive contrast to the gulls' eggs 

 dotted about the open shelves of the headland, with 

 their many tints of bay and umber-brown, but none 

 of red. By far the commonest gull in spring along the 

 shores of south-east Cornwall is the herring-gull, 

 which forms strong colonies on many of the more pro- 

 minent headlands, and fills the neighbourhood with 

 the activity of its nesting life. The large but shallow 

 nests are placed in all situations, from just beneath 

 the very crown of the cliff to some stony ledge almost 

 within fling of the spray at high water. The loose 

 material of which they are composed varies greatly 

 according to their position, since the gulls draw 

 together with little discrimination such soft stuff 

 as is nearest at hand. Near the top of the cliff 

 their nests are chiefly built of grass-tufts and dry fern, 

 near the sea-level much use is made of seaweed, 

 while tresses of the sea-campion and tufts of sea- 

 4 



