368 LAEIDiE. 



Gobbins, attaining to perhaps two hundred and fifty feet in ele- 

 vation direct above the sea, and situated just outside the northern 

 entrance to Belfast Bay, I obtained the following information on 

 the subject of birds breeding there. The sea-hirds which now do 

 so annually are the razorbill and guillemot, both numerously, but 

 becoming gradually scarcer ; the black guillemot (about twelve 

 pair) ; the lesser black -backed gull (four pair) ; and the herring- 

 gull (probably a thousand pair). The common cormorant bred 

 there regularly until 1844, but not since. Puffins and kittiwakes 

 (the former seldom) appear on the sea about the rocks, but do not 

 breed. Of land-birds, peregrine falcons have an eyrie there, and 

 several pair of kestrels nidify. One pair of ravens, numbers of , 

 grey crows, and still more of jackdaws, annually build, as do a 

 colony consisting of some hundred house-martins. A pair of 

 choughs had a nest annually until 1847. 



The species reported to me 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 (P. 

 cai'ho and P. graculus), greater and lesser black-backed gulls, 

 herring-guUs, kittiwakes, and Manx shearwaters.* In 1849, the 

 lesser black-backed gull was not observed there, and of the 

 greater [L, marvnus) there were three pair ; herring -gulls and 

 kittiwakes were very numerous. The raven's nest was thrice 

 robbed of six eggs ; and four of the shearwaters were taken from 

 the holes in which their nests were placed and wantonly destroyed 

 by boys. 



I shall here notice the different methods I have witnessed on 

 the coast of Ireland of descending steep rocks for birds or eggs. 

 At the Gobbins, a " climber" (alluded to at p. 357) has been going 

 down the rocks occasionally in the season for above thirty years, and 

 has a monopoly of the aerial exercise in consequence of being the 

 only person in the vicinity supplied with a rope for the purpose. 

 His preparation was the work of a moment : — throwing his shoes 

 off, and a noose of the rope over his head, so as to embrace his 

 body beneath the arms, down he dropped from the summit, with 



* Mr. R. J. Moulgomeiy. 



