july 1899] EXCA VATIONS ON PUFFIN ISLAND 43 



island, and took up his abode there with his religious brethren. These 

 monks or religious brethren, and those who followed them through the 

 centuries, were known as the " Canons of the Isle of Glannauch," 

 becoming eventually " Canons regular of the Order of St. Augustine." 

 The life of these monks, as recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis in his 

 Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales in 1188, 1 was a simple 

 one. He says : " There is an island, of moderate size, adjoining and 

 almost united to Anglesey, inhabited only by hermits, living by the 

 labour of their hands and serving God. This is remarkable that, 

 when any discord arises among them by the influence of human 

 passions, all their provisions are devoured and destroyed by a species 

 of small mice with which the island abounds, but, when the discord 

 ceases, they are no longer troubled. Nor is it to be wondered at if the 

 servants of God sometimes disagree, seeing that Jacob and Esau con- 

 tended in the womb of Rebecca ; by contention Paul and Barnabas 

 parted from one another; the disciples of Jesus strove as to which of 

 them should be the greatest : for these are the temptations of human 

 infirmity. Nevertheless virtue often by infirmity is made perfect, and 

 faith is increased by tribulation. It is said, moreover, this island is 

 called in Welsh, Ynys Lenach, or the Ecclesiastical Island, on account 

 of many saints whose bodies are buried here, and no woman enters 

 this island." 



What the mice referred to above were we cannot say, but no doubt 

 we shall find some traces of them, unless they were merely creatures 

 of the imagination. The only rodent remains that we have hitherto 

 found are those of the rabbit and common rat. This rat was very 

 abundant on the island, until a few years ago, when it was exterminated. 



The island seems to have been a crown-land up to 1654, when it 

 was sold by Queen Elizabeth to one J. Moore. In the grant this note 

 occurs — " I know not of what compase the saide Ilelande is, nor the 

 comodities thereof. This is the furst pticular made by me of the 

 p'rmises for this sale 29 Ap 1564." Later the island passed into the 

 possession of the Bulkeley family, in whose hands it remains to the 

 present day. 



The excavations made by us have been chiefly in the vicinity, and to 

 the east of the old tower standing about mid-island. Several ecclesias- 

 tical buildings appear to have been erected from time to time, and 

 this tower formed part of the priory which was in existence in the 

 twelfth century. Bound the tower, but at ground level, there are 

 walls, some of which belonged to the priory, while others evidently 

 surrounded portions of the burial-ground. 



In 1893 I made the first excavation, 2 a trench some fifteen feet in 

 length, by three feet wide, and about thirty yards north-east of the 

 tower, at a spot said to have been part of the cemetery. 3 The limestone 



1 Po\vel's Latin edition, 1804. 2 Puffin Peport, 1892 and 1893. 



3 Hopps, Archmologia Cambrensis, vol. xv. 1869. 



