Birds. 1 193 



tion, it ascends smoothly and rapidly, with scarcely moving the wing, probably being 

 propelled by the impetus produced by the rapid descent. Tt is while the bird is de- 

 scending, that the whirring noise is produced, and so soon as the bird turns to ascend 

 the noise ceases, until when, after a few turns through the air, a similar manoeuvre is 

 gone through, and a similar noise produced. This I have observed for an hour toge- 

 ther, while looking for their nests. — Id. 



Sea-birds at Beachy Head. Being on the beach underneath Beachy Head, on 

 Whit-Monday, 1837, I observed three or four men on the top, engaged in taking the 

 eggs of the willock or guillemot, at the part of the cliff which is the highest and most 

 perpendicular, being about five hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea, which 

 at high water washes the base of the cliff. It was not long before one of the party, 

 John Hunter, descended about midway, and seeing several of the willocks sitting on 

 one of the benches, or projecting ledges, of the chalk cliff, he signalled to his com- 

 panions on the top to let him down a gun, which they did, he all the time being sus- 

 pended on the rope, and swinging round within a foot or two of the cliff: but as soon 

 as he got himself steady, he shot and killed two of the willocks. He then got on one 

 of the benches for the purpose of collecting the eggs. These men often succeed in 

 getting twelve or fourteen dozen of eggs in the morning, and at the time I am writ- 

 ing, got a ready sale for them at sixpence each. The men are lowered down the cliff 

 by means of the derrick, which is simply a pole, with a wheel in one end of it, for the 

 rope to go over, and run about two feet over the edge of the cliff, and in the other end 

 is a hole bored, through which an iron bar is driven firmly into the ground, to keep it 

 steady. The derrick is a familiar machine to the smuggler, as it enables him to get 

 his tubs very expeditiously from the bottom to the top of the cliff, which is done by 

 several of the men taking hold of the rope and running right out with it. In the year 

 1838, I obtained from these men a couple of the young of the peregrine falcon, which 

 are annually bred there, but never more than two broods are known to occur in one 

 year ; and I have heard several persons acquainted with the locality say it is their be- 

 lief, that they are the same identical parent birds that have bred there for the last 

 quarter of a century. The birds which I obtained, I brought up until they acquired 

 their full plumage, and they were splendid and beautiful birds, being male and female. 

 I afterwards disposed of them to Wm. Borrer, Esq., of Henfield. To show the great 

 docility of those birds, I will relate an occurrence which took place at Brighton, for 

 it was here I brought them up. My man was in the habit of feeding them, and they 

 would come and sit on his hand when he called them. One of them accidenally 

 got out one morning and flew away, and after searching all the morning, I gave him 

 up for lost ; but having occasion to send my man near St. Peter's church late in the 

 afternoon, he caught sight of the falcon sitting upon one of the projecting ornaments 

 of the pinnacle which rises from each corner of the tower of the church ; and he im- 

 mediately ascended to the top of the tower, but the bird was then seven or eight yards 

 above him, but calling him in his usual way, the falcon descended to him, but being 

 so perpendicularly under, he could not alight upon him, but took a sweep round the 

 church and St. Peter's place, and came and settled upon his hand. — Thos. Thorncross; 

 Brighton, September 27, 1845. 



Occurrence of the Spoonbill in Cornwall. On the 8th instant an immature exam- 

 of the spoonbill was obtained within a short distance of the Land's End. The occur- 

 rence of this bird on several occasions in this county, within the last few years, and in 

 some instances, in flocks, has caused an abatement of interest in it as a curiosity ; but 



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