The Birds of Pembrokeshire. 11g 
And all the while the air will be full of their crooning cry, and 
the noises to be heard at any great breeding station of cliff 
birds, Kittiwakes, &c., are also part and parcel of an experience 
new and strange. After heavy and continued gales in the 
summer and early autumn, countless cliff birds perish from 
starvation, as they are then feeble from their moult, and unable 
to capture the fish that desert the shallows around the shores, 
and seek refuge from the tempest in deeper water ; and, at such 
times, we have seen the sands (on the North Devon coast) strewn 
for miles with Razorbills, Guillemots, and Kittiwakes, and every 
wave has cast others, dead or dying, to our feet. Varieties of 
the Razorbill are very rare. Indeed, the only one we have ever 
heard of is one sooty-black all over, with the exception of a 
dozen or two small white feathers scattered about the breast, 
that Mr. C. Jefferys, of Tenby, has mentioned to us, that is now 
in the museum of the Hon. Walter Rothschild, at Tring, and 
was obtained at Tenby about the year 1886. As soon as the 
young birds are strong enough to fish and to maintain them- 
selves, and this is about the beginning of August, the cliff birds 
leave their nesting stations, and scatter over the open sea, many 
of them working towards the south, but numbers ascend the 
Bristol Channel, where they may be seen in little flocks through- 
out the winter, and we have ourselves encountered them in 
December and January as far up as the Severn Tunnel in the 
old days when we used to make the passage across in the 
paddle-box steamer to Port Skewet. The eggs of the Razorbill 
are very handsome, and beautiful varieties are met with. The 
collection of cliff birds’ eggs formed by Dr. Propert from 
Ramsey Island, is hardly to be surpassed, except, perhaps, by 
that belonging to the national collection of British birds’ eggs at 
South Kensington, and any ornithologist who finds himself at 
St. David’s ought to inspect it, and will be sure to meet with a 
courteous reception. 
COMMON GUILLEMOT, Zomvia troile.—Resident. The Common 
Guillemot is the well-known ‘‘ Eligoog” of Pembrokeshire; the 
Stack Rocks, on which they nest in such numbers as almost 
