XXXVl THE CLIFFS OF THE COAST. 



white lighthouse erected at its south-west corner to guide vessels 

 entering the Taw and Torrid ge over the dangerous bar_, a red ball 

 lioisted on the top of a flagstaff being the sign that there is a 

 sufficient depth of water for the ships to cross it. Good flight- 

 shooting at Duck may sometimes be had in the winter by the 

 shallow ponds on the Burrows. When the ground is covered by 

 snow, many Woodcocks resort to the neighbourhood of the sea ; 

 and we have known good bags to be made at such times on 

 the Burrows — twenty couple a day. On the opposite side of the 

 water, to the south-west, is another extensive marshy flat, bounded 

 towards the sea by sand-hills and the well-known Pebble-ridge. 

 This is the Northam Burrows, once a favourite locality for Snipe, 

 Plover, and Duck, but no longer resorted to by birds, since the 

 villas and terraces of Westward Ho! have sprung up on one side of 

 it, and numerous golfers daily pursue their favourite game among 

 the sand-hills. Here, in former days, we have shot the Ruff"; and 

 once, at the middle of April, found a great congregation of Jack 

 Snipe assembled previous to their departure for the north ; and here 

 our friend the Rev. Marcus Rickards came across a little flock of 

 White Wagtails on their arrival in the spring, and on September 

 15th, 1875, shot a very pretty example of the Grey Phalarope still 

 partly in the summer plumage. 



The Cliffs of the Coast. 



The iron-bound coast of Xorth Devon is of a sterner character 

 than that of the South of the county, fronting the Bristol Channel 

 with a line of precipices, at whose bases there is here and there but 

 a scanty patch of shingle, with deep water close in shore ; so that, 

 as the great merchant steamers pass up and down, they approach 

 in calm weather so near to land that from the Tors at llfracombe 

 it often seems as if it were possible to throw a penny upon their 

 decks. Countesbury Hill, above Lynmouth, looks down upon the 

 water from an elevation of 873 feet, and the land rises rapidly from 

 the coast, reaching near Paracombe to 989 feet ; while, at a short 

 distance, the Chapman Barrow^s attain to 1572 feet above the sea- 

 level. Anyone who takes the delightful walk from Hfracombe to 

 Lynton along the cliff's, and then continues his route to Minehead, 



