Birds. 9097 
its summit, tinting it with a rosy hue when the sun has sunk to rest 
below the horizon. How many a wistful eye has looked upon it from 
the deck of the “ outward bound,’— 
“‘ When slow the ship her foaming track 
Against the wind was cleaving, 
Her fluttering pendant looking back 
To that dear land ’t was leaving.” 
The young cadet, who has just torn himself from the embrace of his 
widowed mother, has gazed.upon it with a full heart as it gradually 
faded away in the gray of evening; and then when returning home, 
after a lapse of twenty or thirty eventful years, the master of wealth and 
honours, the well-remembered outline of the cliff has met his eyes in 
bold relief against the brightening sky at sunrise,— 
* While homeward bound with fav’ring gale 
The gallant ship up channel steered, 
And seudding under easy sail 
The mighty headland first appeared.” 
That magnificent headland has seen the lordly eagle wing his way on 
more than one occasion, “on pinions that never flutter:” one 
occurred as recently as 1859. 
This cliff, a few years since, was celebrated as the breeding-place 
of multitudes of the cliff-birds; but from a very extensive “land 
slip” that occurred some years since, it is no longer the great resort 
that it was at that time. However, a good many of the guillemots, 
‘razor bills and herring gulls breed there now. I will give a few of the 
birds, some of which breed here, and are either in my own collection 
or in that of others. 
Whitetailed Eagle. One in my own collection was shot at Birling 
Gap, near the Lighthouse, on the 17th of December, 1859, by a coast- 
guardsman. Captain Knox, in his charming ‘ Ornithological Rambles 
in Sussex,’ also mentions one shot at Pevensey in 1851, which Mr. A. 
Vidler stuffed for Mr. Ellman, of Lewes. 
Peregrine Falcon. A pair always breed near Beachy Head, and 
did so last year. On Monday, May 18th, 1863, I had a peregrine 
falcon brought me from a nest containing two others, taken on the 
previous Saturday, near the Lighthouse here. 
Hobby. Several were killed here in 1861. It is a rare bird in this 
district. 
Merlin. Occasionally met with near the cliffs. 
VOL. XXII. 2H 
