218 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
picture of the driving of the young ones, reproduced in “ British 
Birds,” and which by Mr. Mullens’s permission can be given 
again. It must have had a good population of Puits, a 
thousand at least, but after the Gulls had shifted their quarters 
once or twice it apparently became extinct.* 
After stopping at Chester,they proceeded towards Anglesey 
—where Ray had been in 1658—intending to visit Priestholm, 
or Puffin Island, from Bangor. Of Priestholm, a good nursery, 
afterwards described by Thomas Pennant,t Ray observes: 
‘“* In the island (Prestholm) are bred several sorts of birds, two 
sorts of sea-gulls, cormorants, puffins, so called there, which I 
take to be Anas arctica clusij, razor-bills, and guiilems, 
scrays [Terns] two sorts, which are a kind of gull.”’{ The 
Great Orme’s Head not being in their programme, although 
Rock-birds might .have been seen there in plenty, they 
next passed on to Bardsey Island, lying at the south- 
west point of Caernarvon, where there “ build the Prestholm 
puffin, sea-pies, and some other birds...” It was here, 
I make no doubt, that Ray learnt the legend of the Puffin’s 
inability to fly over the land—a fable long believed of 
the Solan Goose also—as well as another story about a 
torpid Puffin, which fisherman’s myth he relates in ** The 
Ornithology.’’§ 
From Bardsey their route was to Pwllheli [Pulhely], and 
by the way they saw the Lesser Black-backed Gull, and more 
Terns. On June 2nd, says the journal, they “ rode to Aberdovy, 
seventeen miles, over marsh-land and sand”; it was here, 
according to “The Ornithology,”’|| that the Turnstone was 
identified—a late date for this species. Onthe sandy meadows 
near Aberavon, ever on the look out for fresh plants, they 
* In 1794 they were breeding on some pools at Batchacre, one mile from 
Shebden pool, and about the same distance from Norbury (‘' The History and 
Antiquities of Staffordshire,” by Stebbing Shaw, Vol. I, p. 96). 
Plot’s sketch shows the process of driving the young. Gulls, able to 
ewim but not to fly, towards a net, a maneuvre which was done by men 
with long poles wading in the water. At the present day where gulleries 
exist, it is the eggs which are eaten. 
t Who was there in 1773 (“A Tour in Wales,” Vol. II, p. 260). 
t ‘Select Remains,” p. 226. 
§ P. 326. At the present time it is affirmed that Puffins no longer breed 
at Bardsey, see an excellent account of the birds of that island in the 
“* Zoologist ’’ for 1902, p. 11. 
|| “Select Remains,” p. 236. 
