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 (Vesperugo discolor), 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.

Among the many marine mammalia that have been recorded for the county are two kinds of seal, the sperm-whale, the common rorqual—of which specimens nearly 70 feet long have been brought into Plymouth—the rare bottle-nosed dolphin and the still rarer Risso's grampus. Bones of a whale called Balaenoptera robustus, which were once washed ashore in Torbay, are said to represent a species so rare that these and a few similar relics stranded in Sweden are the only remains of it that have ever been found.

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 (Larus ichthyaetus) 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.

Rich as are the Devonshire seas in fish, they are richer still in crustaceans—crabs, lobsters, prawns, shrimps and their allies; and in this respect ours is the premier county of England. Among a multitude of species, two which have occurred nowhere else in Britain may be specially singled out. One of these is the burying-shrimp, Callionassa subterranea, a little creature something like a very small lobster, with one claw—sometimes the right and sometimes the left—very much larger than the other. It was one of Montagu's many discoveries, and was found two feet deep under the sand of the Kingsbridge estuary. The other rare species is the turtle-crab, Planes minutus, a few specimens of which have been drifted ashore on fronds of Sargasso weed. The "small grasshoppers" which Columbus saw floating in the sea a few days before he sighted the New World, were, it is believed, not grasshoppers, but turtle-crabs.

Other and very beautiful forms of marine life, such as starfish, anemones, corals and other zoophytes, and sea-shells are very abundant. And in spite of the comparative scarcity of lime in the soil of Devonshire, the list of land and freshwater shells is a long one. It is remarkable that Limnaea stagnalis and Planorbis corneus, two water-shells that are common in Somerset, are unknown in Devon. The pearl-bearing mussel, Unio margaritifer, is found in both the Taw and the Teign.

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 (Pieris crataegi), once a common insect, has disappeared within the last forty years, and the greasy fritillary (Melitaea Artemis)—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 (Deilephila euphorbiae) 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.

As might be expected in a district of such varied physical features, with so mild a climate and such an ample rainfall, the flowering plants of Devonshire are very numerous, no fewer than 1156 species having been recorded. The abundance and beauty of its wild-flowers is one of the characteristics of the county. No one who has ever seen them will forget the wonderful wealth of primroses in some of the river valleys—at Holne, for example—or the splendour of the ling-empurpled sweeps of Dartmoor, or its sheets of golden gorse; or the marvellous mist of bluebells upon woodland slopes or in the shelter of straggling hedgerows. Each several district, sea-shore and salt-marsh, moor and bog, wood and valley, has its own distinct and characteristic flora. One Devonshire plant, the Romulea or gênotte, Romulea columnae, a Mediterranean species with very small pale blue flowers, is abundant on the Warren at the mouth of the Exe, but grows nowhere else in England, although it is found in Guernsey. Several plants occur in only one other English county; such for instance are the white rock-rose, Helianthemum polifolium, and the Irish spurge, Euphorbia hibernica, which are confined to Devon and Somerset, and the "flower of the Exe," Lobelia urens, which grows only in Devon and Cornwall. Three plants, which are very abundant in Somerset, the cowslip, the sweet violet, and the mistletoe, are rare in this county, although not unknown. The first plants of sea-kale ever brought into cultivation were originally dug up on Slapton sands; and the vegetable came into note in Bath about 1775.

Ferns are characteristic of Devonshire. Not only are most of the familiar kinds abundant, but rarer species as the true maiden-hair, two filmy ferns, and the parsley fern (Cryptogramme crispa) are to be found. The magnificent royal fern, Osmunda regalis, still grows in some of the river valleys, and especially in Holne Chase, but it has suffered much from the greed of collectors, and the raids of unscrupulous dealers. A great variety of spleenworts has been recorded for the county, and one of the characteristic hedgerow ferns is the pretty little Asplenium adiantum-nigrum. Mosses, also, are very abundant, and there is one kind which occurs nowhere else in Britain. In sea-weeds Devonshire is richer than any other county except Dorset. Among its 468 different species is the Sargasso or Gulf-weed, sprays of which are sometimes thrown ashore after rough weather.

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.

8. A Peregrination of the Coast: 1, The Bristol Channel.

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.

Down such a hollow, the deep and finely-wooded valley of Glenthorne, runs the border-line that divides Somerset from Devon. Rather more than three miles west of it there stands out into the Bristol Channel the dark mass of Countisbury Foreland, the most northerly point in the county, and one of the highest along its coast, 1100 feet above sea-level. Four miles beyond the Foreland, at the mouth of a deep and well-wooded valley, down which runs the beautiful trout-stream from which it takes its name, is Lynmouth, famous for its scenery, of which two striking features are the Watersmeet on the river, and the Valley of Rocks on the coast. A port and fishing-village up to the close of the eighteenth century, its small tidal harbour is visited now only by a few small coasting vessels. About four miles west of Lynmouth is Heddon's Mouth, a little bay at the foot of towering cliffs, with another trout-stream flowing down to the sea through one of the loveliest combes in North Devon. Five miles of cliff stretch from Heddon's Mouth to Combe Martin Bay, a little inlet lying in the shelter of two conspicuous heights, the Great Hangman and the Little Hangman—names associated with no tragic story, but derived, like many others round our coasts, from the Celtic maen, a stone—and with its village, once famous for its rich silver-mines, running a mile inland. Two miles of rock-bound and dangerous coast, swept, especially off Rillage Point, by a strong tide-race, extend from Combe Martin Bay to the ancient port of Ilfracombe, whose mild yet bracing climate and beautiful surroundings have made it the most popular seaside resort in North Devon. Its little land-locked harbour is almost surrounded by lofty hills and rugged cliffs, whose beauty is greatly heightened by the varied colouring of the rock and by the vivid green of the abundant vegetation.

Beyond Morte Point is Morte Bay, most of whose shore lies low, and is fringed throughout almost its entire length by the broad expanse of Woollacombe Sands, along whose margin, at heights varying from eight to fifteen feet above high-water mark, may be traced at intervals a raised sea-beach. At the southern extremity of Morte Bay is the noble headland of Baggy Point, a magnificent piece of cliff, haunted by crowds of sea-birds, and pierced by many caves. The shore of Croyde Bay, beyond the Point, is famous for its fertility; and from the crest of Saunton Down, the last headland before the estuary formed by the waters of the Taw and the Torridge, is a view which, embracing sea and coast-line, rich expanses of farm-land, the distant heights of Dartmoor and the faint shape of Lundy on the far horizon, is one of the finest in all Devon. Along the shore to the south of Baggy Point, where Saunton Sands form the seaward fringe of Braunton Burrows, is another long stretch of raised sea-beach, from two to fifteen feet above high-water mark. And in this beach, not far from Saunton, is a large boulder of red granite, a rock unknown in the district, which may have been stranded here by floating ice.

Braunton Burrows is a long, wide tract of sand-hills, some eighteen square miles in area, stretching far inland, and reaching to the estuary of the Taw and the Torridge, with deep hollows among which, without a compass, it is quite possible to get completely lost. It is a place of much interest to the naturalist and the antiquarian. A number of rare plants are found here, great quantities of primitive flint implements have been discovered in the sand, and at low water the remains of a submerged forest are to be seen along the shore.

The estuary formed by the combined streams of the Taw and Torridge, the former of which is also known as the Barnstaple River, flows into Barnstaple Bay at the south end of Braunton Burrows. There is no port on the open coast; but just inside the estuary are the quaint old town of Appledore and the equally ancient village of Instow, on the left and right banks, respectively, of the river Torridge. In the mouth of the same stream, a little to the south of Appledore, is a long flat rock called the Hubblestone; named, according to tradition, after the viking Hubba, who pillaged this coast in the reign of King Alfred, and fell in battle at the mouth of the Parrett, in the adjoining county of Somerset.

Blocking up a great part of the river mouth, and stretching down the coast past Westward Ho! a distance of about two miles, is the Pebble Ridge, a remarkable bank of shingle and sea-worn boulders, some of which are of great size, though the majority are not more than a few inches in diameter. The sea has gradually shifted it further and further inland, and it now covers what was once a long stretch of good pasture-ground. On its landward side are the golf-links of Northam Burrows, considered to be among the finest south of the Tweed.

Westward Ho! a modern watering-place named in honour of Kingsley's great romance, is chiefly interesting on account of its submerged forest, in whose peat and clay, deeply covered by the sea at high tide, have been found, not only the trunks of large oak and fir-trees, and bones of the wild boar, stag, horse, and dog, but bones of man, together with charcoal, pottery, and implements of flint.

Six miles south-west of Westward Ho! and in the centre of the curve that marks the southern shore of Barnstaple Bay, is the prettily situated fishing-village of Buck's Mill, with red and wood-crowned cliffs behind and beyond it, and extending to Clovelly, the famous little town that may truly be called one of the most remarkable spots, not in Devonshire only, but in all England. Crowded in a hollow in the cliff, with woods on either side, and with an air of climbing up from its little tidal harbour sheltered by a rough stone pier of the time of Richard II, it consists of one long, winding, pebble-paved street, too steep for wheeled traffic, with quaint and irregularly-built cottages to left and right, beautiful with creepers and myrtles, fuchsias and geraniums. Not only is Clovelly intimately associated with the memory of Charles Kingsley, whose father was rector here, but it is the original "village of Steepways," in Dickens and Collins' Christmas story, A Message from the Sea.

A long stretch of wild and magnificent coast-line extends from Clovelly to Hartland Point, where the shore again turns southward, and again from Hartland to the county border; a wall of precipitous black cliffs, relieved here and there by bands of red schist, and broken at intervals by green combes such as are characteristic of the seabord of Devon; a terrible coast, strewn with fragments of wreckage from ill-fated ships.

Six miles south of Hartland the northern seaboard of the county ends, as it began, in a deep hollow in the cliffs, Marsland Mouth, a beautiful combe, down which, under storm-beaten oaks and thickets of thorn and hazel, there winds the stream that forms the border-line between Devonshire and Cornwall.

9. A Peregrination of the Coast: 2, The English Channel.

The points that specially characterise the southern seaboard of Devonshire, and distinguish it from the northern shore, are its many estuaries, its numerous bays and bold headlands, the strong, deep red, in some places, of its rugged cliffs, and, in a minor degree, the sandy beaches which lend an added charm to many of its seaside towns.

No natural feature marks the spot, half-way between Lyme Cobb and the Seven Rocks Point, where the border-line between Dorsetshire and Devonshire begins. But all that part of the coast, almost as far as the mouth of the Axe, shows signs of having been broken away by repeated landslips; one of the most serious of which happened in 1839, when a vast mass of cliff, extending all the way from Pinhay (or Pinner) to Culverhole Point, slipped bodily down some 300 feet, carrying with it fields and houses; and it now lies in most picturesque ruin on the beach.

The mouth of the Axe, above whose eastern side rises the Haven Cliff, a fine mass of red sandstone crowned by white chalk, has long since been silted up by pebbles, and no ships now visit either Axmouth or Seaton, the latter of which was once of sufficient importance to contribute two vessels towards Edward III's expedition against Calais, but is now only a watering-place. Beyond the mouth of the Axe, separated from it by a mile of low-lying shore, the White Cliff, also a scene of many landslips, rises sheer up out of the sea; a fine piece of cliff-wall, the effect of whose bands of red and white, of brown and grey, is greatly heightened by the green of its abundant vegetation. More striking still is the white precipice of Beer Head, the most southerly outcrop of chalk in England, worn above into picturesque and ivy-mantled crags, and hollowed at its base into many caves. From its summit, 426 feet above the sea, is a far-reaching view of the coast, covering the 50 miles from Portland on the east to the Start on the west. Half-way between the mouth of the Axe and Beer Head is the quaint and old-world village of Beer, famous for its labyrinthine quarries tunnelled deep into the hill, for its fisheries and lace-making, and, formerly, as a special haunt of smugglers. From Beer Head, past the little openings of Branscombe Mouth, Weston Mouth, and Salcombe, to Sidmouth, is a range of magnificent and picturesquely-coloured cliffs, white and grey and yellow, and at some points rising straight up from the sea-line.

Sidmouth, the "Baymouth" of Thackeray's Pendennis, set among beautiful hills, and one of the pleasantest of west-country watering-places, was once a port, with valuable pilchard fisheries. But its harbour has been destroyed by repeated falls of rock from its grand cliffs of deep red sandstone, the Sid is silted up with sand and shingle, and the pilchards have left this part of the coast. About a mile west of Sidmouth is the beautiful headland of High Peak, whose summit, 511 feet above the sea, is the most lofty point on the south coast of Devon. Just beyond it is the popular bathing-place of Ladram Cove, whose firm sands are fringed with brightly-coloured pebbles. Rather more than two miles farther on is the estuary of the Otter, a harbour 500 years ago, but now, like so many of these river mouths, barred with shingle. Close to the estuary lies the quiet little town of Budleigh Salterton, set in a beautiful valley, famous for its mild climate and its luxuriant vegetation. Some five miles of coast-line—broken half-way by Straight Point, beyond which the shore is low—extend from Budleigh to the mouth of the Exe, the widest of Devonshire estuaries, but almost closed by a long bar of grass-grown sand called the Warren, on which, during the Civil War, stood a Royalist fort mounting sixteen guns. Exmouth, at the east side of the estuary, formerly a fishing-village, is now a highly popular watering-place.

Four miles farther on, in a little bay walled-in by lofty cliffs of deep red sandstone, is Dawlish, noted for its warm climate and its good sands. At the eastern end of the bay is a rock called the Langstone, and at the western end are the strange-looking pillars of red sandstone known as the Parson and Clerk. Teignmouth lies rather more than two miles S.S.W. of Dawlish, with picturesque red cliffs and firm sands all the way, at the mouth of the estuary of the river Teign, whose swiftly-flowing stream is here crossed by one of the longest wooden bridges in England. It is a small port and a very popular watering-place, with beautiful inland scenery behind it, and inside the Den—the dune or sand-bank which bars a great part of the river's mouth—is a good harbour for vessels of light draught. Teignmouth is one of the towns that in the past have suffered from the attacks of the French, who burnt it in 1347 and again in 1690.

Four miles south of the estuary of the Teign is Babbacombe Bay, in whose beautiful cliffs of red and grey is some of the richest colouring on the whole coast. The paler-toned cliffs round the picturesque little inlet of Anstis Cove are of limestone. Half a mile farther is the prominent cape called Hope's Nose, the northern limit of Torbay, and a spot of much interest to the geologist on account of the raised sea-beach which, at a height of some thirty feet above the present high tide-line, may be traced under the headland, and also, at a lower level, on the Thatcher Rock. Among the marine shells of the latter deposit is Trophon truncatus, an arctic species, whose presence here is another proof that the climate of Devonshire was once far colder than it is now.

Torbay, which extends from Hope's Nose on the north to Berry Head on the south—two prominent headlands nearly five miles apart—is one of the best known and most beautiful bays on the coast of England. In all except easterly winds it affords an excellent anchorage which was much used by ships of the Royal Navy in the old sailing days, and it is still a great yachting station. At the northern end of the bay, occupying, it is said, more ground in proportion to its population than any other town in the island, is the much frequented watering-place of Torquay, widely celebrated for the beauty of its situation and the mildness of its winter climate. Along the whole coast of Torbay, at a level which shows that the land has sunk some forty feet, lies a submerged forest, in which have been found bones of the wild boar, red-deer antlers, and mammoth's teeth. But proofs of an elevation on a still greater scale are to be found in the borings of sea-shells in the limestone cliffs above Kent's Cavern, within the limits of the town, at a height of 200 feet above the present sea level.

Half-way along the shore of Torbay is Paignton, another favourite seaside resort, famous for its fine beach, and on a steep slope at the head of an inlet rather more than a mile before coming to Berry Head stands Brixham, a town second only in importance to Plymouth among the fishing-stations of the south coast of England. Here, on the 5th of November, 1688, the Prince of Orange landed. And here, six weeks after the Battle of Waterloo, the Bellerophon anchored, with Napoleon Buonaparte a prisoner on board.

Beyond Berry Head, which forms the end of a broad promontory, worn at its base into many caves, and noted for its quarries, there extends for many miles—all the way, in fact, to the mouth of the Dart—a stretch of very beautiful coast-line, with low but finely-coloured cliffs of sandstone and limestone and slate, varying in tint from red to purple, and from brown to grey, with a series of sandy bays and fringed by outlying rocks, two of which are called Mewstones. One of these, standing just where the coast sweeps round to the estuary of the Dart, is a lofty pinnacle of stone more than 100 feet high. Well inside the mouth of the Dart, on the steep slope of its left or eastern entrance, is the quaint little town of Kingswear; and opposite to it, on the western shore, lies Dartmouth, once a noted port, but now only a favourite yachting station. The old man-of-war, the Britannia, anchored here close to land and long used as a training-ship, has been superseded by a naval college on shore, and is now used only as a store. Dartmouth is a place of much historic interest. It was from here that part of Richard Cœur de Lion's crusading fleet sailed for Palestine. The port furnished thirty-one ships towards Edward III's attack on Calais. Twice, in the half century that followed, it was plundered by the French. It played a prominent part in the Civil War, and was taken first by Prince Maurice, and afterwards by Fairfax.

Between the mouth of the Dart and Start Point, nine miles as the crow flies, is Start Bay, walled for about half its length with low and quiet-coloured cliffs of slate, and fringed in great part with sand and shingle. At Blackpool, a picturesque little cove near the northern end of the bay, du Chastel the Breton landed, in 1404, on a pillaging expedition, for the plundering was not all on the side of the English. But the Frenchman was killed, with 400 of his men, and 200 more were taken prisoners. Half-way along the shore of Start Bay are Slapton Sands, where a beach of small and brightly-coloured pebbles and a bank of shingle separate the long and narrow lake called Slapton Ley from the waters of the Channel. Off this spot, marked by two beacons on the shore, is the spot, "measured mile" for testing the speed of steamships. Not far from Slapton the coast rises again, and above the fishing villages of Hallsands and Beesands, which stand at the water's edge, reaches a height of some hundreds of feet. The people of these two little hamlets train powerful dogs, which, in rough weather, swim out through the surf, catch the painters thrown to them and thus enable the fishing-boats to be dragged ashore.

Start Point, or, as it is perhaps more often called, the Start, is one of the famous capes of Britain, a bold headland sloping steeply both ways, like the roof of a house; whose iron base, fringed with white quartz pebbles; has been the scene of many shipwrecks, and whose dark cliffs and rugged crags are haunted by multitudes of sea-birds. The cliffs of this part of Devon, from the Start round Prawle Point and Bolt Head to Bolt Tail—cliffs whose grey rock, relieved by bands of white quartz, has been bent and twisted by volcanic upheaval, and weathered by rain and frost, by wind and sea, into the wildest and most fantastic shapes—are as remarkable for picturesqueness of form as other parts are for richness of colouring. Three miles beyond the Start is Prawle Point, a magnificent mass of jagged rock, the most southerly point in the county, and a well-known steering-mark for ships in the Channel. It was off this shore, in 1793, that the English ship Nymphe captured the French man-of-war Cléopatre; the first naval battle in the struggle between England and the French Republic. Between Prawle Point and Bolt Head is Salcombe Mouth, a creek rather than an estuary; a long, winding, and picturesque inlet, whose entrance is obstructed by a bank of sand. Trunks of oak and other trees, from a submerged forest not far from land, are sometimes thrown ashore here after rough weather. To the west of Salcombe stands Bolt Head, of no great height, but a noble mass of rugged and weather-worn rock. Beyond the Head the coast rises into steep and lofty cliffs, culminating in Bolt Tail, close under whose eastern face, in 1760, the 74-gun ship Ramillies was lost, with more than 700 of her crew. A gun recovered from the wreck lies by the Hope signal-station, on the height above. These cliffs have been much broken away by landslips; and a series of fissures called the Pits suggest that much more ground is still to fall.

Round Bigbury Bay, of which Bolt Tail is the eastern limit, is some of the most beautiful scenery of this beautiful coast. A striking feature of the bay is a great rock called the Thurlestone, an outlying mass of red sandstone, conspicuous against the general greyness of the cliffs, and pierced by a lofty archway, worn by wind and sea. Two estuaries, the Avon Mouth and the Erme Mouth, break the coast-line of the bay; and there is a third, called Yealm Mouth, near the entrance of Plymouth Sound, a couple of miles beyond the grand slate headland of Stoke Point. Outside the Avon Mouth is Borough Island, carpeted in spring-time with the beautiful blue of the delicate little vernal squill. The Erme, whose mouth is guarded by rugged cliffs of slate, is strewn with rocks and sandbanks; but the estuary of the Yealm is a fine sheet of deep, navigable water. Standing far out into Wembury Bay, at the mouth of the Yealm, is the third of the Mewstones, a rocky and beautiful little islet, nearly 200 feet high, and frequented, as its name implies, by many sea-gulls.

The Mewstone may be said to mark the eastern side of the entrance of Plymouth Sound, one of the best known, most important, and most beautiful bays in the kingdom. It is by nature fully exposed to southerly winds, and it has, in the past, been the scene of many shipwrecks. But the breakwater, which was built in the early half of the nineteenth century right across it, two miles south of Plymouth Hoe, with the special object of sheltering ships of the Royal Navy, now affords a safe and excellent anchorage. Nearer the shore is Drake's Island, now strongly fortified, but in Stuart times a State prison, where Lambert, one of the most distinguished of Parliamentary generals, spent the last eighteen years of his life.

At the head of the Sound, on its eastern side, is the inlet called the Catwater, the estuary of the river Plym, an important mercantile anchorage, protected by Batten breakwater. It was here that the English Fleet waited until the Spanish Armada, on its way up the Channel, had passed the entrance of the Sound.

Between the Catwater and the Hamoaze, the great naval anchorage which extends from the Sound to Saltash Bridge, are the "Three Towns," Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport, now joined into one by continuous buildings, forming the busiest and most populous part of the county, and constituting, with their dockyards, barracks, gun-wharves, and victualling yards, one of the most important stations of the Royal Navy.

10. Coastal Gains and Losses. Sandbanks. Lighthouses.

There are parts of our island where, even within historic times, the coast-line has been greatly changed by the encroachment of the sea, usually through the wearing away of the cliffs along the shore. This is especially the case on the eastern coast of England, where, in the lapse of ages, villages, towns, and whole manors have been completely swept away. The old town of Ravenspur, for example, a place that in its time rivalled Hull as a sea-port, is to-day a mere sandbank far out from shore; and the sea runs twenty feet deep over the once great shipping town of Dunwich, whose site is now two miles from the land.

On the other hand, there are places where the reverse has happened; where the shore has gained upon the sea. The town of Yarmouth, for instance, stands on ground that first became firm enough to build upon nine hundred years ago. A large tract of land on the coast of Carnarvonshire has, in times much more recent, been reclaimed from the sea; and the day cannot be far distant when the mud-flats of the Wash will be under the plough.

Similar changes—changes resulting both from gain and loss—have happened and are still happening in Devonshire. Braunton Great Field, a rich tract of land some 300 acres in extent, cut up into hundreds of small freeholds, was, it is believed, reclaimed from the estuary of the Taw. On the other hand, the Pebble Ridge on the shore of Barnstaple Bay has been slowly driven inland by the force of the sea, and is said to have advanced 200 yards in the last fifty years, thus covering a long stretch of pasture-land under heaps of stones. Attempts have been lately made, by means of piles and groynes of timber, to stop its further movement.

Much more remarkable, however, and much more widely distributed, are the alterations that have taken place on the south coast of Devonshire, owing mainly to erosion of the cliffs and consequent landslips, and to the washing up, by strong currents, of vast quantities of sand and shingle. From the Dorset border westwards, especially between Pinhay Bay and Culverhole Point, in the White Cliff near Seaton, and at Beer Head, long stretches of cliff, undermined probably by streams and heavy rains, have fallen, sometimes in masses half a mile long. The old town of Sidmouth is now buried under the shingle, the cliffs that protected the harbour having been entirely washed away. At Dawlish, again, rather more than fifty years since, a mass estimated at 4000 tons fell bodily into the sea. Nor is the erosion the work of natural forces alone. In 1897 immense quantities of fine shingle were taken from the beach at Hallsands, to make concrete for Keyham dockyard, with the result that the beach there has sunk twelve feet, that high-water mark is now much farther in-shore, and that many houses in the village have been swept away by the sea, whose further inroads have at last been checked by means of massive walls of concrete.