Birds observed Breeding on the Coasts of Sligo and Mayo. 205 



base of Altmore inside Pig's Island, thousands of Razorbills and 

 Guillemots were sitting — birds that would have been un- 

 noticed from the land side. It was most disappointing that 

 during our stay the wind kept blowing persistently from the 

 north-west, raising such a swell on the rocks that we had no 

 opportunity of exploring by boat, and until this can be done 

 the list of birds met with must necessarily be imperfect. We 

 then got to our car, and back to Belderig for the night, and 

 next morning drove by road to Porturlin, sending the car on 

 from there to meet us at Portacloy after our walk along the 

 cliffs. 



Having engaged a very intelligent boy for a guide, we set 

 off on our walk over the cliffs. The bays at Altmore and 

 Altredmond have certainly the largest number of sea-birds 

 yet met with ; I am certainl}^ within bounds when I say the 

 Puffins were in hundreds of thousands, almost millions. At 

 Altredmond we saw another old nest of the eagle ; after 

 passing the last-mentioned bay we came to another, the large 

 bay mentioned in my first visit as having no sea-birds except 

 a few Guillemots and Razorbills near the entrance. A little 

 beyond it was a smaller bay bounded by the headland of 

 '* Spink," where the eagle's nest was last season. This was 

 a curiously shaped pointed rock, the outer end rising up into 

 a sharp pinnacle twenty or thirty feet high, upon which the 

 eagles used to stand, having a fine look-out all round them, 

 both inland and over the sea, so that they could not be 

 approached unawares from an}^ side ; and some feet below the 

 nest was situated, but not visible from the land side ; but 

 although we saw nothing of the eagles that day, the boy told 

 us they were all the season about the cliffs. In the same cliff 

 a pair of Peregrines had a nest, and we saw the Teiral take a 

 Puffin out of a flock and carry it to his mate and young at 

 the nest. From that bay right on to Portacloy the sea-birds 

 were breeding in large numbers, while at Portacloy we found 

 the largest colony of Guillemots and Razorbills that we had yet 

 seen, breeding by themselves apart from other birds. There 

 was another ej-rie of Peregrines in the cliff on the east side of 

 the cove, and a colony of Choughs, of which we saw the site 

 of one nest. Not having time to explore what remained of 

 the few miles of coast between Portacloy and Broadhaven, 

 including Benwee Head, we returned to Belderig for the night, 



