The Zoologist — March, 1867. 619 



especially abundant. I do not know if both the arctic and common 

 tern breed here, or only one ; I faucy the roseate tern does in small 

 numbers. Rock pigeons seemed tolerably numerous along the coast, 

 and at least two pairs of peregrines have their breeding quarters between 

 this and the Giant's Causeway. R. poiuted out to me the place where 

 he had taken one nest, close to the ruins of Dunluce Castle ; it was 

 the most accessible eyrie I ever saw, and was reached without a rope. 

 At the Causeway one of the guides offered to take a nest which he 

 knew of, but he wanted a sovereign to go down to it, and as it 

 would probably have contained young birds I did not accept his 

 proposal ; moreover, his terms were high. Very few chough seem 

 to breed in these cliffs, but jackdaws are excessively abundant, and I 

 saw one fellow stalking about within twenty yards of the road, so gray 

 down to the shoulders that at a distance he might almost have been 

 mistaken for a hooded crow. The gun was on the car, and I felt 

 greatly tempted to put it together for his benefit, but reflecting that he 

 would be sure to go off ere the cap was put on, I refrained, and we 

 continued on our way. 



Passing Carrick-a-rede, whence we looked down on Sheep Island, 

 the only breeding-place of the storm petrel on the Antrim coast, we 

 arrived at Ballycastle. It had beeu blowing half a gale of wind all 

 the morning, and no offers would induce the hardy fishermen of the 

 coast to put to sea. We roamed about the shore in despair for some 

 hours gazing at Rathlin Island, which in the clear atmosphere seemed 

 so provokingly close, and we watched the changing of the shadows on 

 the fluted promontory of Fairhead, to ray mind the noblest headland in 

 Antrim, and far superior to the Giant's Causeway. At length the 

 wind abated a little, and having managed to collect a crew of four, we 

 started. We soon found that three of the men had imbibed freely to 

 enable them to face the perils of the deep, and one in particular was 

 so excessively drunk that at every second lurch he went to leeward, 

 forming the most dangerous kind of shifting ballast. With a great 

 deal of difficulty we made him bale the boat, for the old tub took in 

 water like a sieve, and after two hours of this work he became more 

 sober. At length we landed safely iu Church Bay, where we were 

 most hospitably received by the proprietor of the island, Mr. Robert 

 Gage, and the rest of the evening was devoted to ornithological chat, 

 and inspection of our host's collection of the birds and eggs of Rathlin. 

 It had recently been enriched by fine specimens of the Greenland 

 falcon and Buffon's skua; the former was shot by the shepherd, and 



