Excavations on Puffin Island. 



" The place of tombs, 

 Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men." 



By Philip J. White, M.B., Professor of Zoology in the University 

 College of North Wales, and Director of Puffin Island Biological 

 Station. 



" And we will row to that little island of which I cannot say the name, 

 I like it so much, it looks so lonely, just broken off, as it were, from 

 Anglesea." 



The Isle of Glannauch, Ynys Seiriol, Ynys Lenach, Priestholm, or 

 Puffin Island, to which Edna Lyall thus refers in one of her novels, 

 are names which have been given, from time to time in the course of 

 history, to the small island lying like a watch-dog at the eastern end 

 of the Menai Straits. For upwards of a decade this island has been 

 closely associated with biological inquiries of various kinds, and the 

 descriptions and illustrations of it have rendered it familiar to many 

 who have neither set foot upon it nor seen it. 



Like some other islands of which we know, Puffin Island has its 

 saint. Professor Herdman, in one of his clever sketches, represents 

 this saint, Seiriol by name, as seated on the rocky shore of the island, 

 contemplating with complacency and evident approval a small party 

 of zoologists trawling from a boat. 1 No doubt the mystic was inter- 

 ested in the biological features of the island and its surroundings in so 

 far as his earthly wants were concerned, but more than this it would be 

 venturesome to surmise. However, as so much good biological work 

 had been done under his auspices, as it were, I felt that it was only 

 right and proper that some effort should be made to investigate the 

 ancient seat of his activities. Mr. Harold Hughes, who has been 

 associated with me in the work of excavation, about which I shall 

 presently speak, has examined the scanty records relating to the 

 island, and has furnished us with a most interesting history. 2 I can 

 but touch on it here, and perhaps cull a few lines from his narrative. 

 In the early years of the sixth century Seiriol erected his cell on the 



1 Fifth Puffin Island Report, 1892. 2 Puffin Report, 1894 and 1895. 



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