Casual Visitors 291 



materially aided the increase, but I believe that it is the 

 absence of birds and beasts of prey, more than anything else, 

 that has led to the establishment of new species of small 

 birds in so many new areas. Perhaps the same cause may 

 have conduced not a little to the increase of albinos, and 

 other odd varieties, so noticeable of recent years, their 

 " kenspeckled " plumage being always attractive to a hawk, 

 should one happen to be near. 



This chapter may be conveniently brought to a close by 

 brief references to one or two occasional stragglers to 

 Llanuwchllyn. On yth August 1905, two Green Sand- 

 pipers, in immature plumage, were seen near the top of the 

 lake, in company with some Snipe ; on the 2yth of the 

 same month, in the following year, a single Greenshank 

 appeared, and remained about the place for a day or two ; 

 a few days previously a solitary Oystercatcher was seen 

 flying over. On 25th July 1906, a small party of Ringed 

 Plovers were running about on the shingle at the mouth 

 of the Lliw. Common, Herring, and Lesser Black-backed 

 Gulls, paid passing visits at various times ; the Black-headed 

 Gull frequently, though it does not nest at the lake. A 

 Great Snipe, and a Water Rail, were reported to have been 

 shot ; and though I did not see them, neither would be a 

 very unlikely visitor. In the possession of Mr Pugh, at 

 Blaen Lliw, I saw a specimen of Leach's Petrel, which he 

 had picked up dead, upon the moor there, on 22nd 

 November 1904. On the coast, the Manx Shearwater is 

 not uncommon, and is known to the English-speaking 

 inhabitants as the Mackerel Cock, because it is supposed to 

 follow the shoals of that fish ; in Welsh, all the Shearwaters 

 are Cneifydd, this bird being distinguished as Cneifyaa 

 manaw, or Pwjffin manaw, Manx Puffin. The Petrels are 

 Pedryn, or in the plural Pedrynod, the Storm Petrel being 

 sometimes called Cas-gan-Longwr, or " the sailors' curse." 



