Xxii. The Birds of Pembrokeshire. 
ment to any reasonable sportsman. We ascribe the paucity of its 
birds to the Precelly Mountains barring the entrance of some 
species, as we have already pointed out; and from studying the 
reports received by a Committee of the British Association from the 
lighthouses and light-ships around the coast of the various birds that 
strike against their lanterns at the great annual migration periods in 
the spring and autumn, we have concluded that there is evidence in 
them that numerous birds, in their movements from south to north, 
or from east to west and zce versd, as they go to and fro over the 
St. George’s and Bristol Channels, only skirt the shores of Pembroke- 
shire, and of South Wales in general, and seldom visit us. Mr. J. 
H. Salter, of University College, Aberystwyth, has informed us that 
he has experienced the same disappointment with respect to the 
birds of Cardiganshire. Coming into that county from Norfolk, 
which is famous for the abundance and variety of the ducks and 
waders upon its coasts and “broads,” he was struck by the absence 
of Sandpipers upon the shores, and by the general scarcity of bird 
life. 
II].—TueE IsLanps. 
Were it not for the islands off the coast there would be little to 
write about the Birds of Pembrokeshire, but these are, in the 
summer time, when the various cliff birds resort to them to nest, so 
thronged with countless birds, that they serve to redeem the county 
from the charge we have had elsewhere to bring against it of being, 
comparatively, uninteresting to the ornithologist, and also afford a 
justification for our book, which, without them, we should have felt 
no incentive to compile. Anyone who has ever visited these 
beautiful islands, especially in bright summer weather, cannot fail to 
have been impressed with the scenes presented to him, which will 
for ever live in his memory. The most important of them in size, 
and in extent of bird population, are Ramsey, Grasholm, Skomer, 
Skokholm, and Caldy. Besides these there are various others, 
satellites of the larger islands, or rocky islets and ‘“‘stacks,” more or 
less distant from the coast, such as the Bishops’ Rocks, where the 
Greater Black-backed Gull, the Sea-Pie, &c., nest ; Skokholm Stack, 
tenanted by acolony of the Common Tern ; the “ Eligoog Stacks,” off 
