THE PUFFIN. 223 



the range of white cliffs facing the south, and forming the 

 northern boundary of Church Bay ; they were not, however, by 

 any means so numerous as on the northern side of the Bull Point. 

 The opinion prevails here, as elsewhere, that the puffins feed 

 their young with sorrel, when they become, as it is stated, too 

 fat to allow them to make their escape from their burrowed nests. 

 This idea I conceived might have originated in consequence of 

 the quantity of the plant not unfrequently found growing, as at 

 Rathhn, in the vicinity of their nests."^ 



Of the Alcidm which frequent the high rocky parts of the coast 

 of Ireland annually for the purpose of breeding, the puffin is the 

 most select as to locahty ; the guillemot, razorbill, and black 

 guillemot being frequently found where it is not; — those three 

 species also being usually met with at the same place. The greatest 

 haunt of the puffin and rock-nesting birds generally which I have 

 visited about midsummer, is the magnificent range of cliffs, miles 

 in extent, in the peninsula — "island" it is called — of 



The Horn, in Donegal, 

 on and about which I spent the week ending the month of June, 

 1832.t I shall therefore copy some of my notes on the birds of 

 the locality, that an idea may be formed by persons who have 

 not visited such haunts, of the species found there. 



By the philosophical student of Nature, however, the mighty 

 scene before him, comprising earth, ocean, sky, each in its subli- 

 mity, will be considered before he turns Ids attention to its beautiful 

 adjuncts ; — the feathered race. Its physical geography, as his 



* In the 5th chapter of a very interesting series of papers by Hugh JNIiller, pub- 

 lished in the '"Witness' newspaper (April 13, 1845), entitled, "A Summer Ramble 

 among the fossiliferous deposits of the Hebrides," it is mentioned that the islanders of 

 Eigg believe the old puffins to administer sorrel-leaves to their young for the purpose 

 of reducing them in size, and enabling them to get out of tlie burrows when their 

 vrings are fit for use. It is believed that the nestlings become so fat, that but for this 

 remedy they would be incapable of leaving their birth-places. 



t The map of the Society for the Diffusion of Ilsefid Knowledge gives " Horn 

 Head 307 " yards, or 921 feet ; but this probably applies to the highest hill of the 

 peninsixla. " Cliffs 235 " yards or 705 feet in height are, however, indicated. In 

 the first volume of this work I mentioned Horn Head as attaining nearly 000 feet, 

 ou the authority of a nautical survey made in 1832 or 1833, in which it was noted 

 as 580 feet. 



