174 MY LIFE AS A NATURALIST 



to accompany me to Wales, where I paid a hurried visit to 

 Llanberis, and from which I made the ascent of Snowdon. I 

 had just come from Scotland, and the following account of my 

 pilgrimage, as written at the time, may best be given. 



I have now been right along the North Wales coast from 

 Saltney (Flint) to Carnarvon, and then inland to Llanberis. I 

 had good opportunities of noticing at close quarters the seaside 

 resorts of Rhyl, Prestatyn, Llandudno, Colwyn Bay, Conway, 

 Bangor,' Deganway, and other less known places. Across the 

 Dee estuary, on the Wirral shore of Cheshire, I could espy at 

 the north-west point the pretty township of Hoylake (famous 

 for its golf course), and several other residential places. It may 

 be noted with interest that the Wirral portion of Cheshire is the 

 only maritime part of the county named. Curiously enough, the 

 Wirral peninsula reminds me very strikingly of the Dunbarton 

 peninsula, bounded by Loch Long, the Clyde, and the Gareloch, 

 a detailed description of which I have already given in the 

 previous chapter. 



Candidly, the Welsh coast-line did not make a great impression 

 upon me, until we were approaching the Isle of Anglesey and the 

 Menai Straits. True enough, I had been right in the heart of 

 the Scotch Highlands, and been to several of its more famous 

 Lochs, as' already indicated in my last record, but from Menai 

 Bridge to Carnarvon, and from thence to Llanberis, is one of 

 the most beautiful railway journeys I have undertaken. It is 

 not so majestic as miles upon miles of the Scotch country I had 

 left behind me with so much real regret, but the bubbling waters 

 of the River Seiont, the beautiful Menai Straits, with Anglesey 

 just across the water, and, as we approached Llanberis, and wound 

 upwards in the direction of the mountains for some distance, with 

 the tail end of Llyn Padarn, one of the Llanberis lakes, on our 

 left, the sight was one I shall never forget. 



I saw Puffin Island sticking out in the Irish Sea off the south- 

 east coast of Angelsey, not far from prettily wooded Beaumaris, 

 and the mention of Puffin Island reminds me that between 

 Sandycroft and Bangor I saw more sea-birds in a single journey 

 than I had observed during the whole of my six weeks' pilgrimage 

 in bonnie Scotland. This is interesting. We left the Holyhead 

 express at Bangor, picking up the track of that line again at Menai 

 Bridge, although not travelling upon it, as our way lay south- 

 west. 



The suspension bridge ,as well as Stephenson's tubular 



