The Zoologist— March, 18G7. 621 



found on its egg. When placed on the ground it is perfectly helpless, 

 and on being pushed off the edge of the cliff it falls in an apparently 

 imbecile manner for a couple of hundred feet or so, but it always 

 manages to recover itself before reaching the water, even when it has 

 been cramped in a creel for a quarter of an hour or more. They are 

 endowed with wonderful vitality, and it is most difficult to kill them 

 without injuring the plumage ; running a penknife into the place where 

 the brains ought to be has but little effect beyond increasing their 

 efforts to scratch ; and as for crushing the breast bone, you may kneel 

 on one for a quarter of an hour without its appearing much the worse. 

 We saw the place where the sea eagle used to breed until destroyed 

 in some of their visits to the mainland, and also another eyrie of the 

 peregrine falcon, which Mr. Gage most properly intended to leave in 

 peace, considering it sufficient to take one nest in a season. As for 

 shooting one of the birds, such a crime is hardly contemplated in the 

 Ralhlin code of laws ; the power of life and death indeed no longer 

 belongs to the "lords of the isles," but I should think the perpetrator 

 might safely count upon being cast adrift in a leaky boat with only 

 one oar, to take his chance. My host spoke with deep regret of the 

 extermination of the sea eagles, which he protected as long as he 

 could, not even possessing one of their eggs in his collection, but no 

 power could prevent them from going to the mainland, where the 

 gamekeeper's gun and strychnine put an end to them. 



Some other cliffs supplied R. with a basketful of puffins and herring 

 gull's eggs, and whilst lying on the summit I saw a lesser blackbacked 

 gull, of which a very few pairs breed on Rathlin. My host had already 

 pointed out to me the place where he had taken the eggs of the house 

 martin, {Hirundo urbica), which along with the swift (C. apus) nests 

 abundantly in the cliffs, I fancied on one occasion I distinguished 

 the saud martin (H. riparia), but I cannot be quite certain. On one 

 of the "terraces," R. found a linnet's nest in a small bush, and, from 

 the appearance of the nest and eggs, it might have been a twite's, as 

 that bird breeds in the island ; however, so do the common linnet and 

 lesser redpole, and as the bird was not seen there was no way of 

 deciding. We flushed snipe in the bogs in the interior of the island, 

 and searched fruitlessly for their nests both going and coming : on 

 some of the lochs were also coot, moorhens, dabchicks, wild duck 

 and teal, all of which breed, as do also the common sandpiper and 

 water rail, though not plentifully. Our host was a long time before 

 he could obtain an authenticated nest of the water rail (" quig," in 



