SEA-FOWL AND SAMPHIRE.
(THERE are still a few patches of the earth's surface left 1 in England to which no " Access to Mountains Bill " or funicular railway will give admission ; where Nature calls to man to keep his distance, and peremptorily forbids him even to set foot. Such, at least, is the warning, as we read it, written on the summit of the sea-cliffs, by the sheep-track that shrinks back from the scalloped edging of the brow, and the treacherous tide that prowls for ever at their feet, and piles round them
the rotten debris of ocean death and land's decay. Yet the attraction of these great cliffs to the imagination and curiosity is as strong as the repulsion which sense dictates. When the air is still, we may sit by the verge of the sheer cliff, and look over on—
"The wrinkled sea that crawls below," while the white gulls swing out and float beneath ; gazing, as it were, on some inverted world, where blue sea takes the place of blue sky, and birds are flying in the air below us. Or we may clamber down the face to some midway ledge, with cliff and sea beneath, and cliff and sky above, and sit level with the sea-fowl as they fly and float, and fancy ourselves in the cloud- city of revolted birds, that starved ungrateful gods by inter- cepting the sacrifices on their way from earth to heaven. Or, greatly daring, we may watch the temper of the tide, when
the cliff— "Sets his bones
To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet For the ripple to run over in its mirth; Listening the while, where on the heap of stones The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet."
But neither from its summit nor its feet, nor- even from some jutting midway crag, can all the secret places of the cliff be seen ; and if the stranger desires to become familiar with the whole surface of the precipice, and learn the ways of its in. habitants, he must be content to gaze only on the forbidden land, and approach it, like good Ulysses, in his boat, over the wine-dark sea. Then, if he choose the hour aright, he may be in time to watch the sea-fowl depart for their long day's fishing, or their return to their sleeping-places in the inacces- sible faces of the crag. But it is not every one who cares to face the discomfort of rising before daybreak, and of a long and chilly row along the shore, while the morning wind blows in cold and clammy from the sea. It is better to lie off the . rocks on a summer evening,— "Between the sun and moon along the shore," and watch the darkening cliffs, and the gulls and cormorants flying in to roost, and mark the ravens and the peregrine falcon that still haunt the crag, to their resting-places among the seams and wrinkles of its face.
The loftyprecipices of Culver Cliffs, in tbe south-east corner of the Isle of Wight, are still the breeding-place of the last two birds, and the most recent visit made by the writer to the spot had for its object to ascertain whether either, or both, had nested there during the present year. As long ago as the days of Queen Elizabeth, the falcons from Culver Cliffs were famous, and they are said to have nested in the same eyries till the present day. The fishermen off the Foreland had just loaded up their boats with the lobster and prawn pots, five dozen in a boat, to shoot at the turn of the tide, and it was not without difficulty that a black-eyed, brown-legged fisher-lad was obtained to aid in managing the boat among the currents and rocks which the falling tide would soon disclose. Like most " longshore " fishermen, who look on the sea-fowl and rabbits in the cliffs as part of their yearly harvest equally with the produce of the sea, he was well acquainted with the habits of the birds, and soon confirmed the existence of the ravens. A coastguardsman had caught a young one newly flown from the nest a few weeks before, which ate so much that he had resolved to sell it cheap, when he returned from his cruise with the mobilised fleet. As we rowed quickly across the bay which separates the low land from the long line of C Aver Cliffs, the first face of the precipice opened out,—a square-topped buttress of chalk. in- curved and overhanging, with waving lines of flints running from top to bottom. For fifty feet above the water the cliff was covered with pale, sulphur-coloured lichen, and the surface was so smooth and hard as to afford no foothold even to the birds, except to the sand martins, which, abandoning the burrowing habits of their race, had made themselves nests of chalk pellets, like those built by house martins beneath the eaves. The beams of the setting sun streamed over the top of the precipice, and against the light the tiny martins were visible, like gnats against the, evening sky. The seared face of the cliff was hardly more favourable to the birds. A few gulls were sitting on a knife-like edge of chalk, which juts into the sea at its extremity, and the first cormorant launched itself heavily into the air, and flew out to sea. But as we approached the third and least accessible angle of the cliff, the cries and calls of the birds could be heard, and cormorants and gulls came flying round the crag to see who were the disturbers of their evening quiet. At the extreme angle of the rock, the sea has bored two deep black holes in the chalk, and in one of these the body of the last of the Culver cragamen was found some years ago, where the sea had washed it. At this point the cliff is, perhaps, more impressive than at any other, rising sheer, white, and lofty, untenanted by birds, and unmarked even by the creeping samphire. Beyond the " nostrils," as the black holes are called, the surface of the chalk alters, and is marked with long, horizontal lines and ledges of grass and samphire, and crowded with the old and young sea-fowl, which have made -it their home for centuries. The long, black, snaky heads and necks of the cormorants lined the highest shelves, and sea-gulls sat quietly in groups and lines, like white doves against the short, green turf. Lower down, the beds of sam- phire hung in gentle curves one below the other, like the "festooned blinds" now so common ; and among the wreaths sat the white and shining sea-fowL The cormorants soon took wing, and flew croaking in wedges and lines out to sea ; but the gulls were tamer and lest; inclined to move, though the whole colony raised their voices in loud protest against our intrusion. Amid the clamour and barking of the gulls, another sound was heard, like hundreds of kittens mewing ; and this, we found, came from the young gulls on the lower ledges. The greyish-brown of the young birds makes them almost invisible against the grey chalk, which is, in this part of the cliff, of a darker colour than else- where ; and it was not until the anxiety of a pair of parent gulls on one of the lowest ledges attracted our attention, that we discerned the young birds daintily walking along the shelf to a point of greater safety. The ravens had this year made their eyrie not in the chalk crag, but in the red sand- stone under "Red Cliff Battery," nearer Sandown. The cliff is there so precipitous, that it would be possible to drop a pebble from the hand on to the beach beneath, which may account for the safe up-bringing of the young ravens during the present summer. The nest no longer held the young ; but one of the brood, apparently the sole survivor now that the protection of the Red Cliff has been abandoned, was sitting, apparently half-asleep, on a ledge of chalk about 100 ft. above the sea. It is not often that the chance comes of watching a wild raven at close quarters. It sat quietly in a sort of niche in the chalk, its head and beak in a line with the body, until our movements caused it to look back over its shoulder. Still it did not move. A gull then walked round the corner of the cliff, and black and white met face to face. The great size of the raven was then shown, as each bird sat looking at the other. Like most of the crow-tribe, the raven seems very drowsy in the late evening, and dis- inclined to move. When at last one bird became uneasy, it walked along a kind of covered way cut in the chalk, out on to a grassy slope, then poised, and swung flapping out over the sea, with loud, hoarse croaks. There it was joined by the two old birds, and all three went through those curious aerial . gymnastics which ravens delight in, tumbling and . taking " headers" in the air, like tumbler-pigeons. Otherwise, the flight of the raven is more like that of a gigantic jackdaw than of a rook or carrion-crow. But its voice and great size easily distinguish it from all other birds.
Where the broken rocks lay piled highest at the foot of the crag, we landed on one to gather samphire, and then turned our eyes from the dazzle of the chalk to the dark, translucent water at its foot. We were floating high above a luxuriant sea- garden, full of a rich and tangled growth of sea-ferns and sea- mosses, yet not so tangled but that each plant Gould be distin- guished from its fellow when the eye became accustomed to the sea change suffered by the light in "the waves' intenser day." Our samphire-gatherer, after ascending to a point at which his form was hardly discernible amongst the giant fragments of rock, cast a great armful of pale green aromatic cliff-herbs into the boat—samphire, and sea poppy, and wild mignonette. Of these, the samphire is the strangest, with its thick, fleshy leaves like ice-plant, its salt and pungent scent and taste, and pale, uncanny-looking flower. To gather it in any quantity, it would be necessary to scale the most dangerous parts of the cliff, and it was while seeking this and sea-fowls' eggs that the cragsman was usually engaged, whose death we have men- tioned. It was his practice to go alone on his perilous expedi- tions, and the exact manner of his death will never be known. It is more usual for two or three rock-climbers to work together. A crowbar is planted in the turf above, and two ropes are used. One goes round the body, and the other is held in the hand ; the first is warped round the crowbar, so as to be let out at pleasure ; the second is fixed to it by a noose, and when the cragsman wishes to reasoend, he shakes this second rope as a signal, and the men on the top of the cliff haul at the waist-rope, while he assists by climbing up the second, hand over hand. The greatest risk is run when the climber throws off his waist-rope, and clambers along the shelving ledges of slippery turf which seam the cliff, where the least slip is fatal.
As the glow of sunset faded behind the cliffs, and the moon rose over the sea, the last flocks of cormorants came in from the channel, like rooks returning to roost. Then, as we set the boat's head homewards, a peregrine falcon darted from the cliff, and with rapid beats of the wing made a half-circle over the sea, returning to the crag in less than two-thirds of the time taken by a flock of cormorants which took the same course when frightened from the crag. We did not see the falcon's mate, or the young, as in the case of the raven. But they are said to have haunted the crag during the spring, and there is little doubt that the peregrine, like the raven, has never deserted the eyrie, which it has held for at least three centuries, in the chalk precipices of Culver Cliffs.
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