232 ALCID^. 



neighbourhood at different periods during winter."*^ Willughby 

 (p. 326), Pennant (p. 433), and Montagu (Oru. Diet.), under 

 the head Puffin, describe it, the guillemot, and razorbill, as sum- 

 mer visitants only ; but later writers mention the occasional oc- 

 currence of the two latter species on the coasts of Great Britain 

 in winter: — on the Irish coasts they are botli then met with. 

 Mr. Selby considers such birds to have been bred in higher lati- 

 tudes, and that all produced on the British coasts retire farther 

 southward. 



At Horn Head, I was told by the gamekeeper, who had vi- 

 sited Tory Island, that puffins, as well as razorbills and guille- 

 mots, with kittiwakes and herring-gulls, build there. Lieut. 

 Reynolds, E. N., informed us, when at Acliil in June 1834, that 

 puffins nidify in immense numbers on Bills Rock, near that island ; 

 ■ — the greatest breeding-haunt of rock-birds known to liim off 

 the coast of Mayo.f It presents, from the coast, a very similar 

 appearance to Tory Island. The late Mr. John Nimmo, of 

 Roundstone, county Galway, mentioned a similar fact with regard 

 to a locality of the same name, about twenty miles off the coast ; 

 but I understood him to mean a different islet from that just 

 alluded to. He stated that the puffin was there called Bill — a 

 name to which the dimensions of that organ, and its peculiar 

 construction, eminently entitle it. The bird is seen there only in 

 summer. 



The Kerry islets, frequented by the puffin for building, are 

 Tearaght Rock, off the Blaskets,J the large Skellig, where a few, 

 and the small island of the same name where immense num- 

 bers, nidify § : — but at the Bull Rock, off the coast of Cork, they 

 are said to be still more numerous. || They come annually to the 

 coast of Waterford at Ardmore, according to Mr. R. Ball, who,- 

 about the year 1821, found a great many washed ashore dead at 



* Mr. J. V. Stewart. 



t Razorbills, common and black guillemotSj cormorants, kittiwakes, and herring- 

 gulls also breed here. 



X Mr. W. Andrews. § Mr. R. Cliute. 



11 Mr. J. F. Towusend. 



