Milton, in praising the nightingale, says—
As the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal note.
The poor wren,
The most diminutive of buds, will fight;—
Her young ones in her nest—against the owl.
Byron, in his “Bride of Abydos,” says—
There sings a bird unseen, but not remote,
Invisible his airy wings,—
But soft as harp, that Houri strings
His long entrancing note.
Lord Erskine, in beautiful words, says—All our poets, from the greatest to the least, from the first to the last, acknowledge by their writings how much they owe to the productions of Nature, both animate and inanimate.
The Golden Eagle—Falco chrysaetos—is mentioned by Yarrell, in his “History of British Birds,” as having been shot near Bexhill, but none of our late writers on Ornithology have been able to authenticate the fact. We have not been honoured with a visit from his imperial majesty the king of birds. Several specimens of the White-tailed Eagle—Falco albicilla,—have been shot in the immediate neighbourhood, and the parties have always fancied they have been lucky enough to obtain the true Golden Eagle. A gentleman from Brighton, being at Shoreham some years ago, just after the landlord of the Dolphin Inn had shot what he considered was the Golden Eagle, somewhat surprised the imagined lucky shot by assuring him that it showed too much of its legs, and that it was only an immature specimen of the Sea Eagle; and so it turned out. Several others are likewise recorded as having been shot in this neighbourhood.
The Osprey, or Fishing Hawk—Falco haliætus,—has of late years been a rare visitant in this vicinity, though several are authenticated as having been shot here formerly. They are occasional visitors along our shores, but seldom go far inland for their prey, as they are true fishermen, living entirely upon the fruits of their labour; and they are very formidable, and powerfully winged birds, darting down from a great height, like an arrow from a bow, upon their prey with unerring certainty. In North America they are welcomed in the Spring by the fishermen, as the happy omen of the approach of herring, shad, &c., which periodically arrive there on the coast, in prodigious shoals.
Eastward of Brighton, about fourteen miles, is Beachy Head, the home, from time immemorial, of a pair of Peregrine Falcons—Falco peregrinus; another pair is generally to be found in the high cliffs near Seaford. This noble bird was the pride of our ancestors in their sporting diversions, and was considered very valuable when possessed of the particular qualities most in request. Yarrell, in his “History of British Birds,” mentions that in the reign of James I. Sir Thomas Monson is said to have given one thousand pounds for a cast (a couple) of these hawks. The high perpendicular cliffs at Beachy Head have always been a favourite breeding place for the Peregrines, and where their young are generally every year taken by a man whose companions let him over the cliff by means of a derrick. The derrick is simply a pole with a sheave-wheel at one end of it, for the rope to pass over, and is run about two feet over the edge of the cliff, and at the other end it has a hole, through which an iron bar is passed and driven firmly into the ground to keep it steady. By this contrivance the man is lowered to the required spot, and hauled up again in safety, and though the process has been going on for many years, no instance is recorded of any accident having occurred. By this means also a great many of the eggs of the Willock—Uria troili—and Razor bill—Alca torda,—are taken; these birds breed here in great numbers every year. 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 men on the beach taking hold of the end of the rope, and running straight out with it, and then fastening on the tubs in clusters. Sometimes they are brought up in this way four or five hundred feet. These cliffs are likewise the resort and breeding places of a great many Jackdaws—Corvus monedula.