36 1 2 St. Margaret's Bay, Kent. 



to steal away his prize, and are pursuing him so unweariedly that he 

 is generally obliged to drop it, in order to escape the annoyance of 

 pursuit. Nor is it less pleasing to see the solicitude which they ma- 

 nifest for the safety of their young, as they fly round and round their 

 nests with restless anxiety, uttering their low plaintive cry of distress, 

 occasionally alighting on the hoary scalp of some prominent crag, and 

 for a few moments standing motionless, like statues cut from the chalk. 



On the ledges of the cliffs before alluded to, the sparrow-hawk 

 breeds ; and in my rambles I met with several pairs of these birds. 

 The merlin, too, inhabits these cliffs in summer, and is said to breed 

 there. Of the truth of this I have no doubt, as I frequently observed 

 a pair which haunted a particular part of the cliff, and from their par- 

 tiality to one spot, their manner, and also from their being seen there 

 at that period (June 23rd), I think they must have had a nest in the 

 neighbourhood. Instances of this bird breeding so far south, are, I 

 believe, considered by naturalists extremely rare. 



On the sea-shore I met with the stonechat, the hooded crow, and 

 the raven. The latter bird, I am told, breeds annually on the high- 

 est parts of the cliffs, generally on the same rock, but not on the same 

 ledge. The common skylark was most abundant on the high grounds 

 above the cliffs, and I never remember to have heard the song of these 

 birds so sweetly delivered. 



A young shark was caught by some fishermen, I believe in the mac- 

 kerel-nets, about the beginning of May, and about four miles from the 

 shore. When I saw it, decomposition had taken place, but I pro- 

 cured the teeth : it measured 5 feet in length. In rambling along the 

 shore, I was much struck with the numberless pieces of mackerel — 

 heads, tails, and bellies of the fish — which were washed upon the 

 shingle. This destruction was occasioned by the voracious dog-fish, 

 which preys upon the mackerel; and when I examined some that were 

 captured in the nets of the fishermen, and discovered their formidable 

 character, I was not surprised at the destruction effected by them. 



To persons coming from an inland situation, it is an interesting 

 sight to witness the shoals of mackerel moving through the sea. You 

 first discover a dark patch upon the waters, and having recourse to a 

 telescope, soon perceive that this patch is nothing less than a shoal 

 of these fishes on their migratory passage. And amusing lively fellows 

 they seem to be, skipping out of the water in a playful manner almost 

 unceasingly, something after the manner of a bleak in fresh water. I 

 do not know the average weight of a mackerel, but I weighed a pair, 

 which appeared to me unusually large, and found them to weigh ft tbs. 



