204 BIRDS OF GUERNSEY. 



been generally fine, all these rocks were tolerably 

 easily landed on, and the fishermen had robbed the 

 Lesser Black-backs to an extent which "threatens 

 some day to exterminate them, in spite of the 

 Guernsey Bird Act, which professes to protect the 

 eggs as well as the birds ; but a far better protection 

 for these poor Black-backs is a roughish summer, 

 when landing on these islands is by no means safe 

 or pleasant, and frequently impossible. On Burhou, 

 near Alderney, there are also a considerable number 

 of Lesser Black-backs breeding, though they fare 

 quite as badly from the Alderney and French 

 fishermen as those on the Amfrocques and other 

 islands north of them do from the Guernsey fisher- 

 men. On all these islands the nests of the Lesser 

 Black-backs were placed amongst the bracken, sea 

 stock, thrift, &c., which grew amongst the rocks, 

 and on the shallow soil which had collected in 

 places. When I was at Burhou in 1876 I found 

 Lesser Black-backs breeding all over the Island, 

 some of the nests being placed on the low rocks, 

 some amongst the bracken and thrift ; so thickly 

 scattered amongst the bracken were the nests, that 

 one had to be very careful in walking for fear of 

 treading on the nests and breaking the eggs. On 

 this Island there is an old deserted cottage, some- 

 times used as a shelter by the lessees of the Island, 

 who go over there to shoot a few wretched rabbits 

 which pick up a precarious subsistence by feeding 



