NOTES AND QUERIES. 471 



cavernous place close by. On April 29th I fouud on the rocks a nest of 

 the Hooded Crow (Corvus comix), only some ten feet above the high-water 

 mark of a little creek. It was built of sticks, chiefly gorse from the brows 

 above ; the cup in the centre very neat, lined with wool, moss, leaves of 

 Luzula, and rags, with a bit of printed paper and an end of rope. The 

 flat top of the low cliff, some fifteen feet high, on which the nest rested, was 

 strewn with empty limpet-shells. So far as I have seen, the " Grey-back " 

 shows very little solicitude when its nest is approached, strongly contrasting 

 with the Raven in this respect. It is in this district far from sagacious in 

 its choice of a nesting site. A pair built last year in a very accessible and 

 frequented spot just to the north of Laxey Harbour, where I am told the 

 nest was several times robbed and at last destroyed. On June 3rd, in 

 company with Mr. Graves, I found a small breeding colony of Cormorants 

 [Phalacrocorax carbo) on our west coast. There were about six nests, on 

 rather broad ledges, just where a very steep hillside merges into a lofty 

 perpendicular cliff. The nests were great structures laid on the flat ledges, 

 and whitened all over; most of the birds showed white thigh-spots. 

 Although, out of the breeding season, the Cormorant is commonly met 

 all round the Manx coast, and is the species usually seen about the har- 

 bours, and on isolated stacks and on reefs, as, for instance, Conister in 

 Douglas Bay, where quite a flock may sometimes be observed, yet as a 

 breediug species it must (except perhaps on the Calf and the end of the 

 island immediately opposite, of which I cannot speak with certainty in this 

 respect) be decidedly rare ; while the Shag in the nesting season is well 

 distributed, and often numerous, but seems to scatter less in winter. The 

 Black Guillemot (Uria grylle) is still to be found in certain localities; at 

 one in some numbers, at others sparingly. At one of the latter I saw, on 

 Feb. 27th this year, a little party of five already assembled, and swimming 

 off their apparently breeding haunt, which a few continued to frequent 

 through the summer. Though so few in number, they are well known in 

 the neighbourhood in connection with that particular spot, and a cliff with 

 a few cavernous recesses, which at high tide are filled with water. The low 

 piping cry, well described by Capt. Feilden (Seebohm's ' Brit. Birds,' iii. 385) 

 as a "plaintive whine," is sometimes very constantly repeated, and I have 

 heard it uttered while the party was on the wing ; it strikes me as a sound 

 peculiarly dreary and cheerless. On July 6th, 1896, I visited a colony of 

 Terns, perhaps the only one known to exist in Man. I am not aware 

 that it has been determined whether the species is the Common (Stemus 

 hirundo) or the Arctic (S. arctica). I saw perhaps fifty birds, which were 

 very shy, and kept at a great height in the air while I was in the neigh- 

 bourhood of their station. The nesting place was a ridge of large coarse 

 gravel just above high-water mark ; the nests were in many cases placed 

 very close to each other. Most were quite unlined ; one contained some 

 straws of the sea-reed. The variety and richness of colouring of the eggs, 



