JULY 1899] EXCAVATIONS 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,’ 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 
ealled 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 
prmises 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. Round 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,” 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.* The limestone 
1 Powel’s Latin edition, 1804. 2 Puffin Report, 1892 and 1893. 
3 Hopps, Archwxologia Cambrensis, vol. xv. 1869. 
