268 Lord Lilford — Notes on 



seamed with two or three water-courses ; the northern side 

 is more steep, but cleft by a small cove, with a landing-place 

 and a pathway to a large building at some little distance up 

 the glen, which is cultivated and planted with vines, fig, and 

 other trees. We lowered away our cutter, and rowed round 

 the western side of the island, which is more or less precipi- 

 tous. A small colony of Herring Gulls were apparently 

 breeding on the flat top of a little rocky promontory, and 

 circled over our heads with great clamour, two or three Shags 

 dived before us, and two pairs of the small Peregrines showed 

 by their angry screams that their eyries were in the crags 

 above us ; a Blue Rock Thrush whistled from a crevice, and 

 these few birds constituted, as far as we were concerned, 

 the entire visible avifauna of the island. We went on board 

 the yacht again ofl" the south-western point, and stood away 

 for the southern end of the island of Giglio, a high nar^ 

 row mass of rock, apparently terraced with vines in every 

 available spot, and dotted on the western side with white 

 cabins. The southern side slopes gently, and terminates in a 

 low range of cliff, at the western extremity of which stands a 

 lighthouse. On rounding this point we lowered our cutter 

 and explored a mile or more of the fretted and waterworn 

 rocks. In a barren creek just below the lighthouse we found 

 and shot a Green Sandpiper {Totanus ochropus),(i mud-larker 

 which seemed entirely out of its element upon the rocks, where 

 a Purple Sandpiper would have been completely at home. In 

 a pinnacle of jagged rock to the eastward of tbe lighthouse 

 was a nest of the small Peregrine ; both the parent birds 

 dashed about over us, screaming angrily, and the male flew off* 

 and circled round the yacht for several minutes. This eyrie 

 would have been accessible to a good cragsman from above, 

 but the shades of evening were falling, so we pulled on to 

 the eastward, and shot a few Rock Doves from some small 

 caves. The only other birds seen upon Giglio were a pair of 

 Kestrels, the ubiquitous Blue Rock Thrush, a pair of Alpine 

 Swifts {Ctjpselus melba) , and a solitary Common Sandpiper 

 [Totanus hypoleucus) . We went aboard of the yacht about 

 nightfall, ran over to the mainland, and anchored for the 



