390 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



which the "Lhag" opens. Of the beauty of the white beaches 

 the dark inlets, the green blossoming brows of this most charming 

 and little -known portion of our coast, this is not the place to speak. 

 Good numbers of Herring Gulls breed at Gob-yn-Ushtey ; there 

 are several steeply sloping brows occupied, some nests being placed 

 deep among thick grass tufts, a thing of not common occurrence. 

 Underneath is a " Shag rock," and some Shags nest in the 

 abrupt and caverned cliffs in which the slopes end. The further 

 side of the Gob (or point) is an enormous precipice, and the view 

 southward from its top has a character of stern and desolate 

 wildness very uncommon in our scenery. Beneath is the cliff 

 just mentioned, sheer and bare of vegetation, and from your feet 

 broken screes of stone and bracken, swarming with rabbits, fall 

 to the water's edge further in front. Right ahead there heaves 

 up a great mass of highland, part of the back-bone of the isle, 

 presenting to the sea for miles a steep brow from 800 to 1400 feet 

 in height, capped by the wind-swept watch station of Cronk-ny- 

 Ircy-Lhaa, the whole reach without cultivated ground or inhabited 

 house. As a rule, however, the actual cliff of this imposing coast 

 is not of very great height, though the mountain is broken by 

 clefts which make the task of keeping as close as possible to the 

 sea a very toilsome one. In a long and barren gully which falls 

 from the hill-top to the water lies the ruin of a little immemorial 

 church, and beneath is a beautiful shore, where the rough white 

 beaches of the Geinnagh Vane alternate with dark points, from 

 whose dripping ledges springs luxuriant Osmunda regalis, and in 

 whose high deep cavern the rocky walls are hidden by the gigantic 

 growth of drooping Harts-tongue and Asplenium marinum. All 

 along the Herring Gulls' nests are strewn, on the grassy ledges, 

 the rough boulders, the rushes of earth, and the rough sheets of 

 bare rock. Only one spot, the Stroin Vuigh, rivals the Gob-yn- 

 Ushtey on this reach of coast. Here and there Herring Gulls breed 

 all along to Fleshwick, the spots haunted by them conspicuous 

 by their brighter green. Scattered pairs of Shags also breed at 

 the more abrupt portions. At Stroin Vuigh a high cavern opens 

 below the bird-haunted crags, and here, as well as in less numbers 

 at one or two other places in the neighbourhood, the Razorbill, 

 Alca toi'da, breeds. I saw last summer a few Lesser Black-backed 

 Gulls among the crowds of Herring Gulls here. 



On the other side of Fleshwick, Bradda presents somewhat 



