42 LLANDDWYN 



A wandering gull gets a warm reception from 

 these birds. This is Tern Island, and they let him 

 know it. 



Only once during our stay (except when disturbed 

 by our landing upon the island) did the whole body 

 of Terns get up together, and that was when 

 one of the great liners appeared in the offing. Then 

 all the birds rose and hovered, covering the island 

 from end to end, manifestly concerned at even the 

 distant appearance of this modern leviathan. 



There is fairly deep water all round Adar Island, 

 and landing can be effected only by jumping at the 

 swell from a small boat on to the lower crags. The 

 whole surface, except small patches in the centre, is 

 jagged at every foot into sharp points and edges. 

 Towards the centre of the island, gravel, such as that 

 in the coves of Llanddwyn,fills many of the fissures, 

 and in places forms small flat areas. Yet Adar Island 

 has no shore of any sort, and stands well off Lland- 

 dwyn both at high and low water, besides being about 

 fifty feet high ; so that the coarse gravel now deposited 

 in the centre of it, has been churned up from the 

 sea bottom during the tempestuous winter winds and 

 flung over the high rock wall surrounding the island, 

 or carried bodily by the wind from Llanddwyn on 

 the east ; both highly improbable suppositions. 

 Failing these, however, the gravel lies where it was 

 deposited when Adar Island had, as Llanddwyn now 

 has, its gravelly coves, and had not yet become 

 merely a great sea-girt snag of rock. 



It was chiefly in these gravel-filled fissures that 

 the Terns had laid their eggs, and that in such 

 numbers and confusion that one might well imagine 



