162 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



" The Calf" is 616 acres in extent, irregularly triangular, and 

 generally pretty compact in shape, though broken at its southern 

 side. An isolated Stack stands at the south, and another at the 

 west. The greatest height of the islet, near its western end, is 

 421 feet. On the north its coast has no cliffs, and on the east 

 the only high point is the " Kione Rouayrt," but the rest of its 

 circuit shows a fine face of precipice, rising almost to its summit. 

 Near the edge of the high western cliff are two lighthouses, 

 which formerly showed the position of the Chickens reef, a 

 little to the south-west, but which have been disused since the 

 erection of a lighthouse upon the rock itself. Further inland is 

 a farmhouse, and a part of the Calf, chiefly in its neighbour- 

 hood, towards the centre of the islet, is cultivated. 



It was on June 9th that my visit was made. The weather 

 was beautiful ; a soft haze rested on the calm sea and obscured 

 the distant view. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, when, 

 having procured a boat through the kindness of a Port St. Mary 

 friend, our party set out from that picturesque little haven. 

 Leaving the land-locked harbour, and the houses clustered closely 

 under their sheltering hill, we rowed round the low outstretching 

 shelves of limestone, curiously formed and rich in fossils, which 

 separate Port St. Mary from the creek of Perwick — one of the 

 many Norse names which recall the days of Viking settlement. 

 Round the point, the low coast gives place to the bold broken cliffs 

 of slate rock which form the usual Manx sea-margin. On the west 

 side of Perwick these are not yet lofty, but steep and picturesquely 

 caverned, and round their edges runs a strip of lovely greensward 

 which, a month before our visit, was pale with the crowding 

 blooms of the vernal squill, Scilla verna, which grows so 

 thickly as to give the cliff-margin the prevailing tint. This is a 

 favourite haunt of the Wheatear, Saxicola cenanthe, and just 

 outside is one of the "Shag Rocks" of the island, on this day 

 untenanted, for these birds in their breeding-season more or less 

 forsake their ordinary roosting-places. Crossing the opening of 

 Perwick, we heard the note of the Oystercatcher, H&matopus 

 ostralegus, and saw a party of some seven or eight of these birds 

 scudding along by the white-shingled strand of one of its inner 

 creeks. They probably breed somewhere in this district sparingly, 

 as they do more numerously on our sandy northern coasts. 

 Until past Perwick we had seen nothing of rock-birds, but on 



