THE MANX SHEARWATER ON SKOMER ISLAND. 371 



We stayed three or four nights on Skomer, which will ever 

 be associated in my mind with the Manx Shearwater. As I 

 have visited a great many islands, I venture to express an 

 opinion that Skomer is the greatest British breeding-place of 

 the Manx Shearwater, and, for its size, perhaps the greatest in 

 Europe. The birds are not confined to the edge of the cliffs 

 (indeed they rather avoid the extreme edge, which is mainly 

 colonized by Puffins), but breed all over the island. The Puffins 

 and Shearwaters constantly live in the same holes, but the Shear- 

 waters seem to burrow deeper than the Puffins, and the Puffins 

 do not breed so far inland. Skomer is largely devoted to rabbits, 

 and the courteous and hospitable owner, Capt. Davies, com- 

 plains bitterly of the injury done to him by the Shearwaters and 

 Puffins. He states that they have become far more numerous 

 since the passing of the Sea Birds Protection Act, and have 

 driven away the rabbits, disturbing the does in the breeding- 

 season. The Shearwaters he complains most of, because they 

 breed everywhere, and take possession of the rabbit-holes in the 

 very centre of the island. Captain Davies offered a small 

 reward for their destruction one evening to his farm-boys, and 

 he told me they brought him I think it was twenty-four dozen 

 Shearwaters in a few hours, striking them with sticks as they 

 fluttered along the ground attempting to fly. The eggs are so 

 very deep in the holes they are difficult to obtain. 



Mr. Dixon says the " Manx Shearwater is one of the 

 commonest birds of St. Kilda"; but he was unable, he tells 

 us, to land on " Soa, their great stronghold." owing to "the 

 tremendous swell which was breaking over it." I visited Soa the 

 year previous to Mr. Dixon's excursion to St. Kilda, and found 

 it was a large island grazing one hundred and fifty to two 

 hundred sheep, and more than one thousand feet high, — very 

 unlikely to be covered with even a " tremendous swell," — and I 

 should say that the- Shearwaters of Skomer Island are much 

 more numerous. On some future occasion I may trouble you with 

 a few notes on St. Kilda birds, as my experiences do not altogether 

 coincide with those of Mr. Dixon. At present my subject is the 

 Skomer Shearwaters, whose noise and numbers have made a vivid 

 and lasting impression on me. Mr. Dixon's notes on the St. Kilda 

 Shearwater will be found in ' The Ibis ' for 1885, p. 94, and in 

 Mr. Seebohm's ' British Birds,' vol. iii., p. 421. 



