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A very remarkable and interesting feature of Devonshire is Lundy--an island three miles long by one mile broad, lying out in the Bristol Channel, opposite Barnstaple Bay, and twelve miles north-north-west of Hartland Point. Its name, it is believed, is derived from two Norse words meaning Puffin Isle.

Perhaps the greatest charm of Lundy lies, as will be shown in some detail in a later chapter, in its natural history, especially in the vast numbers of birds which visit it in the breeding season. Among very rare stragglers that have been shot here is the Iceland falcon, a species of which very few examples have been recorded for this country. A few plants and insects are peculiar to the spot. There are now few trees, except those planted not long ago near the owner's house in a cleft at the south-eastern end, but some shrubs, such as fuchsias, hydrangeas, and rhododendrons grow to a great size, and the mesembryanthemums are particularly vigorous and beautiful.

Granite for the Thames Embankment was obtained here, but the quarries have long been closed, and farming is the chief industry of the few inhabitants.

There are evidences of very ancient occupation, in the shape of kistvaens, tumuli, and the foundations of primitive dwellings; and in times more recent the island has had a stirring history. In the reign of Henry II it was held by the turbulent family of the Montmorencies or Moriscos, and the shell of Morisco Castle, now converted into cottages, still stands on the south-east corner of the island. During the Civil War it was fortified for the king, and only surrendered in 1647. At various times in the seventeenth century it was captured by French, Spaniards, and Algerines; and it was, moreover, several times occupied by pirates, some of whom were Englishmen, who found it a convenient station from which to plunder ships sailing up the Bristol Channel.

Devonshire is a well-watered county, a county of many rivers; and although not one of its multitudinous streams is of real commercial importance or of much value as a water-way, by their mere abundance and by the beauty of their scenery, especially of the magnificent ravines which many of them in the lapse of ages have worn deep in the rock, they form one of its most striking features.

The longest of the Devonshire rivers is the Exe, after which are named Exford and Exton in Somerset, and Exeter and Exmouth in our own county--a strong and beautiful stream which rises near Simonsbath on Exmoor, flowing for the first twenty miles through Somerset and crossing the Devonshire border near Dulverton station, where it is met, on the left bank, by its great tributary the Barle. It then runs nearly due south, through well-wooded and fertile country, being joined on its left bank, at Tiverton, "the town of the two fords," by the Loman; and farther down on the same side by the Culm, which gives its name to Culmstock. Near Exeter it receives on the right bank the Creedy, a pretty and winding stream that lends its name to Crediton, and along whose shores in some of the richest land in Devonshire. A little below Exeter, close to the once famous port of Topsham, it is joined on the left bank by the Clyst, a small and unimportant stream, flowing through most fertile country, and giving its name to no fewer than seven villages. Below Topsham the Exe widens out to nearly a mile, forming, at high tide, from this point to the sea, a noble estuary five miles long, with the popular watering-place of Exmouth on the slope of the eastern side of its entrance, which is almost closed by a long sandbank called the Warren, divided into two parts by a stream. Until late in the thirteenth century the Exe was navigable from the sea to Exeter. But in 1290 Isabella de Fortibus, Countess of Devon, having quarrelled with the citizens, blocked the river-bed with stones, at a place still called the Countess Weir, leaving, however, sufficient room for ships to pass. At a later period this space was closed by the Earl of Devon, and the navigation of the river entirely stopped. Vessels now reach Exeter by a canal.

The second river in point of length is the Tamar, after which are named North Tamerton in Cornwall and Tamerton Foliott in our own county. Rising in the extreme north-west, in the high ground that parts Devonshire from Cornwall, it forms almost the whole of the dividing line between the two counties, and is characterised throughout the lower portion of its course by some very beautiful scenery. It is joined by many streams, some rising in Devonshire and some in Cornwall; some of which--the Lyd, for example--are renowned for their wildness and beauty. The largest of the western tributaries is the Lynher, entirely a Cornish river, whose estuary joins the Hamoaze. The most important of those on the left bank is the Tavy, a Dartmoor-drawn stream, giving its name to the town of Tavistock and to the villages of Peter Tavy and Mary Tavy, and flowing through some of the most fruitful land in Devonshire. A particularly fertile district is that lying between the Tavy and the Tamar.

Although it is a much shorter river than the Exe or the Tamar, the Dart is better known than either, and is perhaps the most familiar by name of all the Devonshire streams. Along its banks, especially near Holne and Buckland-in-the-Moor, and along the wooded shores of its magnificent estuary, is some of the most beautiful river-scenery, not in this county only but in all England. The most important of its many tributaries are the East and the West Dart--both of which rise in the great bog round Cranmere Pool, and join at a picturesque spot called Dartmeet--and the Webburns, East and West. Below Totnes the Dart widens out into a long and most beautiful estuary, winding among finely-wooded hills. On the west side of its entrance is the old port of Dartmouth, named, like Dartington, after the river, and on the opposite shore is the smaller but equally picturesque little town of Kingswear.

Famous as the Dart is for the wildness and beauty of its scenery, and for the excellence of its trout and salmon fishing, it has an evil name for the dangerous nature of its swiftly-flowing waters, which, after heavy rain on the moor, rise with extraordinary rapidity, changing it in a few hours from a peaceful and easily-forded stream into a raging and resistless torrent. At Hexworthy, in November, 1894, the river rose ten and a half feet above the level of the previous day. Characteristic of this as the other of the moorland streams, is the strange sound it sometimes makes, especially towards nightfall, known as its "cry," and believed by the superstitious to be ominous of flood and danger. To "hear the Broadstones crying"--masses of granite lying in the bed of the stream--is considered by the moor-folk a sure sign of coming rain.

The Dartmoor rivers, in the upper part of their courses, are naturally all swift, and are all more or less tinged by the peat of their moorland birth-place--lightly, when the stream is low, and deepening in flood-time into the colour of a rich cairngorm.

The Teign, another of the streams that rise in the Cranmere bog, is famous both for the beauty of the scenery along its winding shores and for the many prehistoric antiquities--stone circles and alignments, menhirs and tumuli--which stand near them. Its two main branches, the North and the South Teign, meet about a mile to the west of Chagford. To the east of that moorland village the river flows through beautifully wooded valleys, and is joined on its right bank, below Chudleigh, by another Dartmoor tributary, the Bovey, on which stand Bovey Tracy, famous for its beds of lignite and clay and for its potteries, and North Bovey, near which are the remains of the very remarkable Bronze Age village of Grimspound. Below Newton Abbot the Teign becomes a broad estuary, on or near whose shores are five of the townships that are named after the river, the most important of which is the little port and well-known watering-place of Teignmouth. The river mouth is almost blocked by a low promontory, which, although now built over, was once a mere sand-bank or dune, from which latter word, no doubt, it takes its name of the Den.

Other south-coast rivers are the Axe--one of whose two main branches rises in Somerset and the other in Dorset--which gives its name to Axminster and Axmouth; the Otter, which rises in the Blackdown Hills, and flowing past Honiton, Ottery St Mary, and Otterton, reaches the sea at Budleigh Salterton; the Aune or Avon, especially famous for its salmon, the Erme, and the slopes Yealm, small but beautiful streams rising on the southern slopes of Dartmoor, widening into estuaries as they near the English Channel, and giving names to Aveton, Ermington, and Yealmpton, respectively. The Plym, after which are named Plympton, Plymouth, and Plymstock, is another Dartmoor river, flowing through some very beautiful country, especially in the neighbourhood of Bickleigh, and at length forming a broad and important estuary known first as the Laira, and lower down as the Catwater or Cattewater, which joins Plymouth Sound.

The chief rivers on the north coast are the Torridge and the Taw, the former of which, rising in the extreme north-west, on the Cornish border, near the source of the Tamar, flows south-west for nearly half its course, and then sweeps round to run in the opposite direction, giving its name to three several Torringtons, and having as its chief tributaries the Walden, the Lew, and the Okement, all on its right bank. The last-named stream is formed of the East and the West Okements, which meet at Okehampton, their namesake. The lower waters of the Torridge form a long and narrow estuary--its shore only ten miles distant from the original source of the river--half-way down which is the once important port of Bideford, built on both sides of the stream, which is here spanned by a very ancient bridge. Near the entrance of the estuary, but neither of them on the open sea, are Appledore, the port of Barnstaple, and Instow, a small but growing watering-place.

The Taw is a Dartmoor-drawn river, rising, like so many streams, in the Cranmere bog, giving its name to Tawstock and to three several Tawtons, and receiving on its right bank the Yeo, the Little Dart, and the Mole. The most considerable town on it is Barnstaple, beyond which it becomes a broad tidal estuary, joining that of the Torridge, and flowing out into what is known both as Barnstaple and Bideford Bay.

Many small streams fall into the Bristol Channel, among which is the Lyn, renowned for its beautiful scenery and its good trout-fishing.

A large proportion of the Celtic words in our language are found in the names of natural features, especially of hills and rivers. This is particularly well seen in Devonshire, where, as has been pointed out, the Saxons came as settlers rather than conquerors, adopting many of the names which they found already in use, and where an unusually large number of towns and villages have been called after the streams on which they stand.

The lakes of Devonshire, as is the case in the majority of English counties, are little more than ponds. Cranmere Pool, in the great morass where many Devonshire rivers rise, lying in a dreary spot, as befits the reputed place of punishment of evil spirits, has shrunk of late years in consequence of much peat-cutting in its neighbourhood, and is now an insignificant pond, rarely more than seventy yards across, and in hot summers sometimes quite dry. Bradmere Pool and Classenwell Pool, the sites of old mine-workings, are beautiful little lakes, but they are only a few acres in extent. Burrator Reservoir has been made in order to supply water to Plymouth. The largest of these miniature lakes is Slapton Ley, or Lea, a long and narrow sheet of water, two and a quarter miles in length and measuring about 200 acres, separated from the sea, with which it was no doubt once connected, by a bank of fine shingle. The reeds of its north-eastern end, which are cut and sold for thatching, are the haunt of many water-birds; and the Ley is visited in winter by immense numbers of migratory ducks and waders.

Three main points characterise the geological features of Devonshire; the simplicity of the system in the west, north-centre and south-west of the county; the comparative complexity and variety of the strata in the east and south; and, most remarkable of all, the extraordinary number of outcrops of igneous rock, from the great mass of Dartmoor granite, which has no parallel in England, to the hundreds of small dykes or elvans that are scattered chiefly over the southern region, although some occur to the north and east of Dartmoor.

The oldest rocks in Devonshire are probably not, as was once thought, the granites, but the highly altered or metamorphic formations in the extreme south; that is to say, the mica and quartz schists and the hornblende epidote schists which extend from near Start Point to Bolt Tail, a district which, owing in great measure to distortion by volcanic upheaval, includes some of the most picturesque scenery in Devon.

Next in order of age is the series called Devonian, after the name of the county, in which they were first distinguished from the Old Red Sandstone. They are, however, by no means confined to Devonshire, but are very widely distributed, covering a large part of Cornwall, and occurring on the continent of Europe, especially in Russia, and in Asia and North and South America. The Devonian beds--which are found both in the north and south, occupying two distinct areas separated by widespread deposits of culm or carboniferous measures--were, it is thought, formed in open water, and probably at the same time that the Old Red Sandstone of the adjoining county of Somerset and elsewhere, which is not found in this county at all, was being deposited in estuaries and land-locked seas.

NAMES OF SUBDIVISIONS CHARACTERS OF ROCKS SYSTEMS

Superficial Deposits T R T Sands chiefly I A R Clays and Sands chiefly

Chalk at top Sandstones, Mud S and Clays below E C N D A R Shales, Sandstones Y and Oolitic Limestones Red Sandstones and Marls, Gypsum and Salt

Red Sandstones and Magnesian Limestone P Sandstones, Shales I and Coals at top M Sandstones in A middle Limestone R and Shales below Y Devonian and old Red } Red Sandstones, Sandstone } Shales, Slates and } Limestones Sandstones, Shales and Thin Limestones Shales, Slates, Sandstones and Thin Limestones Slates and Sandstones { { {Sandstones, {Pre-Cambrian No definite classification yet made {Slates and {Volcanic Rocks

The Lower beds of this series contain fewer organic remains, although a good many fossils are found, including fragmentary remains of various fishes which have not yet been identified. The Upper Devonian is, on the whole, very poor in fossils.

The Lower Lias is exposed in a narrow strip of coast from the Devonshire border to the mouth of the Axe, and to a greater extent in the valley of the river above Axminster. It has been divided on the coast into four distinct zones, each characterised by its own particular species of ammonite.

To the Pleistocene period also belong the gravels and alluvial deposits of some of the river valleys , the blown sands of Braunton Burrows and elsewhere, the raised sea-beaches, the submerged forests, and the cave-deposits which are alluded to in other chapters.

It is generally believed by naturalists that the ancestors of most of our fauna and flora reached this country at a time when what we now call the British Isles formed part of the mainland of Europe, and when there was no intervening sea to bar the way.

Before this colonisation was complete, however--that is, before all the different kinds of European beasts and birds had made their way to the extreme western districts--communication with the continent was broken off. The land of the north-western districts of Europe sank. The sea flowed in, forming the German Ocean, the English Channel and the Irish Sea, and the influx of animal life was stopped.

This is the reason why there are more than twice as many kinds of land animals in Germany as there are in England, and nearly twice as many in England as there are in Ireland. This is the reason why there are no snakes in Ireland, and why the nightingale, on returning from the south, never crosses into the sister kingdom.

On islands that have long been separated from a continent it is found that forms of life tend to vary in the lapse of time, and that fresh species are developed. That it is not long, as geological periods go, since Great Britain became an island, is shown by the fact that we have no quadruped or reptile except the Irish weasel , and, setting aside minor differences which some writers have magnified to the value of a species, only one bird, the red grouse, which is not also to be found in Europe. Very different is the case in Japan, which was separated from the mainland of Asia so long ago that new species have had time to develope; and the islands of that country contain many kinds of beasts and birds which are unknown on the adjacent continent.

Some of the animals which came from Europe into Britain have died out, either because the climate changed and so cut off their food supply, or because they were destroyed by the hunters of the Stone Age. The bones which have been found in Kent's Cavern at Torquay, and in other caverns, afford clear evidence that the mammoth, the lion, the bear, and the hyaena once roamed over the hills of Devonshire.

Although there are many more species of beasts and birds on the continent of Europe than there are in this country, both birds and beasts are numerically much more common here. Nothing strikes a naturalist more forcibly when travelling in France or Italy, for example, than the scarcity of wild life, and especially the fewness of the birds. It is true that we have fewer species, but we have many more individuals. To this, several causes have contributed. Englishmen do not, as is the custom in many European countries, shoot or trap for food small birds of every description. And game preserving--although it has been fatal to the larger birds of prey, such as kites, falcons, and buzzards, and keeps down other species, such as jays, magpies, and carrion crows--provides innumerable sanctuaries for great numbers of the smaller birds, which are safe from harm during the breeding season.

The natural features of Devonshire are so varied in character, including as they do large areas of wild and uncultivated and thinly-inhabited country, together with many well-wooded and sequestered valleys, and wide stretches of bog, salt-marsh, and sea-coast, that it is very rich in both animal and vegetable life. Its marine fauna and flora, in particular, are of very great interest, and are among the most remarkable in England.

Nearly all the native mammals of the British Isles are found or have been found in this county, from the "tall red deer" that has run wild on Exmoor from time immemorial, down to the pygmy shrew, the smallest but one of European quadrupeds, and weighing only one-tenth of an ounce, or about forty-three grains and a half.

Among the eight species of Devonshire bats is the very rare particoloured bat , of which the only example ever recorded in England was taken at Plymouth, having perhaps travelled there in the rigging of a ship. It is probably more than a hundred years since the last genuine wild-cat was seen in the county, but both the marten and the polecat still survive in secluded spots. Foxes are common, and there are still many badgers in some of the Dartmoor valleys, where the two species have been known to inhabit the same holt. Otters abound on all the principal streams, and are as regularly hunted as the red deer and the fox. Devonshire is, indeed, pre-eminent for its otter-hunting, and the Culmstock pack is believed to be the oldest in the island. Harvest mice and dormice, although widely distributed, are not numerous, and the original English black rat is now rare.

Situated as Devonshire is, between the English and the Bristol Channels, and containing widely-different physical features, suited to the needs of species of very different habits, the list of its birds, including residents, migrants, occasional visitors, and stragglers from the Atlantic and even from America, is a very long one.

Among the larger land-birds which still hold their ground in the county are the raven and buzzard, both of which are to be seen on Exmoor and Dartmoor and on the coast, and the peregrine falcon, which has eyries on both the northern and southern seaboards. A few pairs of choughs still build in the northern cliffs; while such rare birds as Montagu's harrier--first identified as a British species in this county--the hoopoe, and the golden oriole still occasionally breed here, and might do so regularly were they left in peace. Several birds, such as the kite and the osprey, the latter of which now breeds nowhere in England, and the former only in one solitary spot, have long since left the county. Warblers as a family are less abundant than in some other parts of the British Isles. The nightingale is nowhere common, but it occurs every season near Ashburton and in the valley of the Teign. Owing to the mildness of the climate it is not at all an unusual thing for a few chiffchaffs and willow-warblers to spend the winter in sheltered valleys on the south coast, instead of migrating to Africa in the autumn. The ring-ouzel is a regular visitor to the open country of Dartmoor, while the dipper haunts many of its streams. Two birds which have greatly increased in numbers of late years are the jackdaw and the starling. It is thought that the former has done much towards exterminating the chough by destroying its eggs; and the latter, by taking possession of its holes, has in many places driven away the green woodpecker. Partridges and pheasants are numerous, but black-game, once abundant on Dartmoor, have become so scarce that they are at present protected the whole year round.

But by far the most abundant, and perhaps the most characteristic, of the birds of Devonshire are the sea-fowl, the water-fowl, and the waders, of which more than 140 different kinds have been recorded for the county. Not only are its sandy shores, its bays and estuaries and leys, haunted in autumn and winter by multitudes of northern immigrants--swans, geese, ducks and a great variety of wading-birds; but there are several spots along the south coast and a few on the north where sea-birds regularly breed; while the reed-beds of Slapton Ley provide sanctuary for great numbers of coots and for many wild-ducks and teal, together with some rarer species. Herons are common on the south coast and along the river estuaries, and there are heronries at Powderham and elsewhere. A great black-headed gull shot on the Exe in 1859, is the only one known to have been seen in the British Islands.

There is, however, nothing on the mainland of Devonshire to compare in ornithological interest with Lundy, which in the summer time is a bird-lover's paradise. Gannets, once very numerous, have now left the island, but cormorants, shags and gulls of various species here build their untidy nests. Here multitudes of guillemots and razorbills assemble in the spring and lay their great pear-shaped and boldly-marked eggs on the ledges of the cliffs; while even vaster hosts of puffins come back every year to take up their quarters in rabbit-burrows or in holes which they have dug for themselves in the turf. Here the raven, the buzzard, and the peregrine have fastnesses. Here, in chinks and crannies, storm-petrels breed; and here, when darkness falls, the startled listener may hear the weird, wailing cry of the night-wandering shearwaters.

The few reptiles and batrachians of Devonshire present no points of special interest. Vipers abound on Dartmoor, where they are commoner than grass-snakes. It is curious that, while the palmated newt is common throughout the county, the smooth newt and the triton are now comparatively rare.

The freshwater fish differ little from those found in the neighbouring counties; but there are fewer kinds in Devonshire than there are in the midlands or in the east of England. Trout abound in all the streams, and there are important salmon-fisheries on the Exe, the Dart, and other rivers. A sturgeon seven-and-a-half feet long was once taken in the Exe. Eels, which are hatched in the Atlantic, to the west and north of the British Islands, at a depth of 3000 feet or more, come up from the sea when they are two years old, and still very small, and ascend the rivers, especially Exe, in enormous numbers. When they are mature, which is not until they are several years old, they go down to the sea to spawn, and never return.

It is, however, in marine zoology, for which few other parts of England afford so rich a field, and for which its bays and inlets, its rock-pools and stretches of sand provide ideal hunting-ground for the naturalist, that Devonshire is most distinguished. Many famous zoologists, such as Leach, Montagu, Parfitt, Gosse, and Kingsley have won renown both for themselves and for the county by their researches; while the Marine Biological Laboratory at Plymouth is constantly adding to our knowledge of the multitudinous inhabitants of the sea. The subject is so vast that only a few chief points can here be touched upon.

The sea-fish differ in marked degree from those of the east coast of England. Plaice and cod, for example, are smaller here than those caught in the North Sea and the latter are scarce; and the haddock, one of the most important of east coast fish, is here almost unknown. Two characteristic fish of the south coast of Devon are the pollack, which reaches a great size, and the pilchard, confined to this county and to Cornwall. Many southern and even Mediterranean species find their way to these waters: notable examples are the gigantic tunny, one specimen of which weighed 700 pounds, the beautiful rainbow wrasse, one of the most brilliantly-coloured of all fish, and the boar-fish, which is sometimes quite common. A number of rare species, such as Montagu's sucker and the crystal goby, were first made known as British through being taken off the Devonshire coast. Stray examples of the tropical bonito, the flying-fish, the electric torpedo, and the sun-fish, one specimen of which weighed 500 pounds, and the splendidly-coloured opal or king-fish, have been recorded. Several kinds of sharks have been caught in these waters, including the blue shark, the spinous shark, covered all over with sharp prickles, the rare and formidable hammer-head, the huge thresher, and the still larger basking-shark. The latter is, indeed, the largest of British fish. Specimens have been caught measuring 30 feet in length, and weighing more than eight tons. Marketable marine-fish will be treated of in a later chapter.

The county is rich in insects, especially as regards butterflies, moths, and beetles; but several of the first-named which have been caught in Somerset have not been recorded here. The black-veined white , once a common insect, has disappeared within the last forty years, and the greasy fritillary --another vanishing species--is now almost extinct. Neither insect can have been hunted down for the sake of its beauty or its rarity, and the reason for this disappearance is unknown.

About a hundred years ago, caterpillars of the spurge hawk-moth were very plentiful on spurge plants growing among the sand-hills near Barnstaple. Many of these caterpillars were taken by naturalists, and were reared, and ultimately turned into perfect insects; although neither there nor anywhere else in our island was a wild example of this very beautiful moth ever seen alive. The spurge plants were long ago covered up by drifting sand, and the caterpillars were all destroyed. No other locality for them has been found in England, and as far as this country is concerned the spurge hawk-moth appears to be extinct.

Except on the moors Devonshire is well timbered. The elm is perhaps the most conspicuous tree, but the beech and the ash are also very abundant. There is a very fine wych-elm, with a trunk 16 ft. in circumference, in Sharpham Park. The sycamore, which when well-developed is a very beautiful tree, here attains to fine proportions, and there are noble examples at Widecombe-in-the-Moor. The oak, although it grows freely, does not, as a rule, reach a great size, though there are some well-grown specimens at Tawstock Court. There is an oak at Flitton, near North Molton, which is thirty-three feet in circumference, and the Meavy oak is twenty-five feet in girth. An oak-tree thirteen and a half feet in diameter was cut down at Okehampton in 1776, and there is a tradition that two couples danced upon its stump. There are no very remarkable yews in Devonshire. Probably the finest are at Stoke Gabriel, Kenn, and Withycombe Raleigh, but the first of these is only fifteen feet in girth at the level of the ground. There is a story that, under the yew-tree at Mamhead, Boswell vowed that he would never get drunk again. At Bowringsleigh there is a magnificent avenue of lime-trees, and the avenue of araucarias at Bicton, planted in 1842, is said to be the finest in the kingdom. Several manor-houses possess one or more noble old mulberry-trees planted in the time of James I, with a view to encourage the cultivation of silk. At Buckland Abbey, once the home of Sir Francis Drake, there are some beautiful tulip-trees. Palms and other sub-tropical trees grow without protection at several places on the south coast; and at Kingsbridge and other towns pomegranates, oranges, lemons, and citrons will ripen their fruit in the open air.

A good many places in Devonshire take their names from trees. Thus Ashburton is named from the ash, Egg Buckland from the oak, Bickleigh from the beech, and Holne from the holly.

Devonshire, like Cornwall and Kent, is remarkable in having both a northern and a southern seaboard; a peculiarity shared by no other English county. Its two shores present striking points of difference. The south coast-line is broken by many estuaries. On the other shore there is only one important river mouth. There are, it is true, many little coves and inlets on the Bristol Channel, some of them of great beauty; but they make little show upon the map of England, and the stern outline of the North Devon coast affords no harbour of refuge.

Both shores are rock-bound. But while the southern cliffs are, in great measure, of warm-hued and even brightly-coloured stone, those on the north are dark and gloomy; and their tones, although in some places very beautiful, are set in quieter key--in grey or brown or even verging upon black. Again, the southern shore is fringed at some points with sandy beaches; while on the north coast there are no sands at all, except on the western side of Bideford Bay.

Along the northern seaboard of Devon there runs a series of magnificent cliffs, in parts heavily wooded, whose dark walls, sloping steeply to the shore and with projecting bases suggestive of the ram of a battleship, are relieved at many points by deep, rocky clefts, known variously as combes or mouths; each with its stream, each green with ferns and oak-coppice and thickets of thorn and hazel, and each with its butterfly-haunted clumps of tall hemp-agrimony.

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