To Enjoy The
Sensation I Went Out And Sat Down, And Listened Alone To The
Liquid Rippling, Warbling Sound Of
The swift-flowing
streamlet - that sweet low music of running water to which the
reed-warbler had listened thousands of
Years ago, striving to
imitate it, until his running rippling song was perfect.
A fresh surprise and pleasure awaited me when I explored the
coast east of the village; it was bold and precipitous in
places, and from the summit of the cliff a very fine view of
the coast-line on either hand could be obtained. Best of all,
the face of the cliff itself was the breeding-place of some
hundreds of herring-gulls. The eggs at the period of my visit
were not yet hatched, but highly incubated, and at that stage
both parents are almost constantly at home, as if in a state
of anxious suspense. I had seen a good many colonies of this
gull before at various breeding stations on the coast - south,
west, and east - but never in conditions so singularly favourable
as at this spot. From the vale where the Branscombe pours its
clear waters through rough masses of shingle into the sea the
ground to the east rises steeply to a height of nearly five
hundred feet; the cliff is thus not nearly so high as many
another, but it has features of peculiar interest. Here, in
some former time, there has been a landslip, a large portion
of the cliff at its highest part falling below and forming a
sloping mass a chalky soil mingled with huge fragments of rock,
which lies like a buttress against the vertical precipice and
seems to lend it support.
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