308 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



which were pierced with arches and crowded with Kittiwakes and 

 AlcidcE, the top presents a gently sloping plateau covered with 

 dark, strong thrift. Among this thrift, — though not on the 

 highest ridge of the island, and not beneath the elevated 

 plateau, — were Great Black-backed Gulls breeding together in 

 such numbers that, when standing and surveying them on the 

 wing, Mr. Green agreed with me that one hundred would probably 

 be too small an estimate of them. They covered the island in a 

 wheeling crowd, while their nests were dotted about among the 

 huge tufts of rank thrift on the top of the island. Most of the 

 eggs had been hatched, though we took some clutches, varying 

 from fresh to the last stage of incubation. The young in grey 

 down, spotted with black, were crouched all around us. It is 

 uncommon to find several pairs of this fine species breeding 

 together, but where can we hear of so large a colony as this on 

 the Bills ? These birds seem unusually plentiful on that coast, 

 and the Bills are their great strongholds. The panorama from 

 the Bills included the mountains and islands of Connemara, 

 Croagh-Patrick, Clare Island Mountain, and Achill, with its lofty 

 ranges and stupendous cliffs. The cap of peat on the eastern 

 Bill swarms with Puffins, but few Great Black-backs breed there. 

 Several pairs of Herring Gulls, however, do so, which are absent 

 from the central rock ; on the western rock only Kittiwakes breed. 



Off Achill Head is a rock called Carrickakill : on this a colony 

 of Kittiwakes appeared to be on their nests on an unusually 

 sloping surface, accessible enough if one could land in the per- 

 petual ocean-swell and run of tide. A little north of this we 

 came up with a Sun-fish, which did not remove though the steamer 

 passed almost over it. Mr. Green then rowed up to it and put a 

 bullet through its head : it measured eight feet six inches from tip 

 to tip of its fins, and about six feet six inches from its nose to its 

 hinder extremity. 



On landing at Belmullet I visited my friend Dr. Burkitt, late 

 of Waterford, now eighty-four years of age, the correspondent of 

 Yarrell and Thompson, and the preserver of so many rare 

 additions to the avifauna of Ireland, to which he added yet 

 another species, the Barred Warbler, which he presented to me 

 (p. 310), together with a Dunlin in breeding plumage, killed at 

 Belmullet the previous day. He said that Swallows had become 

 much scarcer within the last seven years at Belmullet. I saw 



