BIRD LIFE ON THE SALTEES AND THE KERAGHS. 93 
thickness, forming floors. On these lay innumerable eggs of 
Guillemots. Looking down the seaward side of the Makestone, 
the hosts of Guillemots exceeded anything of the sort I had 
seen. Wherever an egg could be stuck, a Guillemot had laid, 
often in very sloping places. 
One evening I flushed a flock of Cormorants which were 
perched on a rocky hill opposite the Makestone. One remained 
asleep with its head under its wing until I caught it, when it 
inflicted a bite never to be forgotten, inserting its sharp hooked 
beak deep into my hand. 
Forty Cormorants’ eggs have been taken off the Makestone 
on the 15th June. I have taken them in the Co. Waterford 
from the 18th April onwards, but Cormorants chiefly lay about 
the beginning of May. Four is the usual number, though I have 
taken three and five eggs occasionally. 
Throughout the elevated tract that forms the southern part of 
the island the surface is continually broken by groups and masses 
of rock, rising into craggy eminences towards the south end. 
As we approach this hilly region from the cultivated land, no 
golden furze meets the eye,—it is nearly absent from the island, 
but the landward hill-slopes are covered with wild hyacinths, 
presenting vast sheets of the loveliest blue. Here Lapwings 
breed, and their young ones have been seen on the 14th May. 
Among the beds of hyacinths loose rocks lie confused. From 
these we flushed a pair of Nightjars on the 14th May last, and 
found one of them about the spot for two days afterwards, not at 
all disposed to remain on the wing even at dusk. When one of 
these Nightjars was seen seated on a fragment of rock with nearly 
closed eyes, it was hard to convince ourselves that it was not a 
lump of moss. The boys of the island did not seem to know it. 
These birds were probably reposing after their migration on this 
sheltered side of the hill, the Saltees being within that portion of 
the Irish coast line where migratory birds are known to arrive in 
greater numbers than elsewhere. Nightjars breed commonly 
throughout the Co. Waterford in suitable localities, even near 
the sea. 
On mounting the hill, the top is found to bea sheep walk 
covered with short grass and occasional sheets of bracken, while 
masses of granite project sometimes but little above the surface, 
forming in places groups of large stones, as though placed 
