( 155 ) 



THE BIRDS OF LAMBAY ISLAND, CO. DUBLIN. 

 By H. Chichester Hart, B.A. 



The island of Lambay, 595 acres in extent, lies off the coast 

 of Dublin, about two and a half miles from the nearest point of 

 that county at Portrane. The coast-line is high and precipitous, 

 with the exception of a small sandy bay at the harbour and a 

 short stretch of low shore on the west and south-west side of the 

 island. Its margin is about seven miles in lengtb, and the shape 

 is roughly hexagonal. The cliffs vary in height to about 250 ft., 

 and are sheer for a considerable distance in many places, as on 

 the north-east side, west of Freshwater Bay, and on the south-east 

 cliffs below Raven's Well. 



There is little timber on Lambay ; a small planting of syca- 

 mores at the castle, and a stunted growth of shrubs, such as 

 blackthorns, brambles, &c, in a few places, is all the shelter of 

 this nature the island affords.* 



There are two or three resident families of peasants, and a 

 large partly-ruined, partly-inhabited castle, with a good deal of 

 cultivation at the south and south-west of the island. Elsewhere 

 it is a heath, affording good pasture, with a few small rivulets 

 and a slight marsh or two. The chief produce of the island is 

 that of a dairy farm and a rabbit warren. 



Lambay is the chief resort for cliff-breeding birds on the east 

 coast of Ireland. Dalton, in his 'History of Ireland' (1838), 

 says, " The Cornish Chough, Corvus graculus, with red bill and 

 shanks, is frequently seen here ; also the Rock Pigeon, Columba 

 rupicola." In 1851 Thompson, in his 'Natural History of Ireland' 

 (vol. hi., p. 368), remarked : — " The species reported to me (by 

 Mr. R. R. Montgomery) as breeding at the cliffs of the island of 

 Lambay, off the Dublin coast, in 1850, were Puffins, Razorbills, 

 Common and Black Guillemots, Common and Green Cormorants, 

 Greater and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Kitti- 

 wakes, and Manx Shearwaters. In 1849 the Lesser Black-backed 

 Gull was not observed there, and of the Greater there were three 

 pairs ; Herring Gulls and Kittiwakes were very numerous. The 



* A ' Flora of Lambay,' by the writer of the present paper, is now in the 

 press of the Royal Irish Academy. 



