The Zoologist— May, 1870. 2117 



III. 



The island of Bernera, or Baira Head, is well described by Mac- 

 gillivray, in his 'British Birds' (vol. v. p. .351). That accurate nature- 

 loving naturalist describes in glowing terms its precipices as seen from 

 below. I shall endeavour in the following chapters to describe this 

 celebrated bird station, to traverse in imagination the awful precipices, 

 and afterwards to describe the rearing of the young rock birds and 

 their departure. 



The island is about a mile in length and half a mile in breadth, the 

 north-eastern end dipping into the sea, terminating in a group of 

 rocks at Nisam Point, rising at the south-west end to the height of 

 683 feet, on the edge of which precipice the lighthouse is built. The 

 lighthouse stands at the head of a gully, with two peninsulas of rock 

 running out each side : across the end of one is a ruined fort, with an 

 underground apartment, used by the natives in the olden time for 

 shelter. The name of the north peninsula is Sloch-na-Page, the 

 other Beorlin. It is not my iuteution to describe the many times 

 I have been down, but to picture one, and the habits of the birds 

 seen. 



On the morning of the 3rd of June, having equipped ourselves with 

 guns and game-bags, my brother and I, accompanied by a light- 

 keeper, whom I shall call " Mac," prepare to descend the precipice of 

 Beorlin. We have cast off coats and boots, and in our stockinged feet 

 scramble down the steep grassy slope for a hundred feet or more, till 

 we reach huge masses of fallen rock, some imbedded in soil, others 

 resting on fragments of debris, which an incautious step would send 

 bounding into the boiling sea beneath. Mac's pet Skye terrier 

 follows us everywhere, now frantically rushing at the puffins' holes, 

 and with struggling yelps scratches at them, whence he drags out 

 a puffin, which he biles at the back of the head, and brings for our 

 approval. Slowly descending, the "grass," as the bladder-campion is 

 called, gradually gives place to bare rock, the debris of which lies 

 scattered all about : a slip or a false step, and one w^ould be hurled 

 from ledge to ledge into the sea beneath. No such fears oppress me, 

 as keeping close to Mac, the best climber in the Long Island, we get 

 on to the hard rock, free from the loose debris. 



The puffins, which higher up have sparingly tunnelled their burrows 

 in the sandy soil, and are demurely sitting watching us, are here in 

 great numbers, sitting in bands of about a dozen on fallen rocks, 



