480 BURHOU. 
the second syllable) is one of the few spots in the United Kingdom 
where Stormy Peirels breed, and they do so here in great numbers, 
but their nests are very difficult to get at. These curious little 
birds, the ‘ Mother Carey’s chickens’ of sailors, are never seen on 
land in the daytime, but after dark they fly about like bats, as I 
discovered when I was forced to pass a night on the island, owing to: 
the sudden appearance of a dense fog. The ceaseless erek-oo, 
kerek-oo of the Petrels as they sat on their nests—a peculiar wailing 
cry, seemingly far distant, though really close by—varied with the 
plaintive scream of a sea-gull and the shrill pipe of an oyster-catcher ; 
all these voices, mingled with the dull roar of the sea, formed a 
singularly impressive concert in the calm stillness of a summer’s 
night. 
The distance between Burhou and Alderney is two or three 
miles, but the sea passage is comparatively narrow, owing to the out- 
lying rocks. This passage, called La Passe au Singe, anglicised 
into its more familiar name, the Swinge, is reputed to be one of 
the very worst bits of sea in all the English Channel. To the south- 
west another dangerous passage separates Burhou from Ortach, a 
curious isolated rock, which rises out of the sea like a colossal 
hayrick sixty-five feet high. Still further westward, some three miles 
or so, is the perilous group called the Casquets, on which the ill- 
fated steamship S¢e//a was wrecked with an appalling loss of life on 
the afternoon before Good Friday, 1899. The Casquet rocks, the 
largest of which bears the well-known lighthouse, cover a mile and 
a half of sea, and are particularly dangerous to navigation, as they 
lie almost exactly midway between England and France, in the 
direct line of a ship’s course advancing up the Channel from the 
Atlantic or the Bay of Biscay. 
When seen from the heights of Alderney, the greater part of 
Burhou appears clothed with verdure, and this appearance is not 
deceptive, but nowhere else have I seen so large an extent of 
greenery composed of so few different wild plants. The great bulk 
of the vegetation is made up of four species only, the other plants 
hardly forming a conspicuous portion of the general mass. The 
common Bracken (Pterts aguilina) is the principal constituent, the 
greater part of the island being thickly covered with this fern, which 
grows about two feet high. Towards the north and east the Blue Bell, 
or Wild Hyacinth (Endymion nutans) grows literally by the acre, 
and much finer than I ever saw it, except ina garden. ‘The flowers 
are larger and more fragrant than usual, and of an intense purple 
blue. The sandy soil, enriched for centuries by multitudes of sea 
birds, no doubt accounts for the luxuriance of this plant. But the 
most abundant species of all is the Sea Spurrey (Lepigonum 
rupestre), which forms a thick carpet wherever the ground is not 
occupied by fern and Blue Bells; and, like the latter, it is very 
Juxuriant. And, lastly, there is the pretty white-flowered Sea 
