502 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



adult bird in Pwllheli harbour. The Kittiwake breeds on one 

 range of very high cliffs ; I saw the eggs. Mr. Coward mentions 

 two other breeding stations. The Lesser Tern seemed scarce. I 

 found two pairs some miles apart, and spent a long time watching 

 these beautiful birds hawking over the shallows, with their beaks 

 pointing straight down, to descend presently with a splash, and 

 rise with a small fish held crosswise. The ordinary cry is 

 " squek," uttered rapidly two or three times, or a single " kik," 

 which changes to a loud angry "jek" when the birds are 

 aroused. Mr. Coward has seen either Common or Arctic Terns 

 off the coast. 



Although the headlands of Lleyn are bold and high (Cilan, 

 340 ft. ; Mynydd Mawr, upwards of 400 ft. ; Mynydd Annelog, 

 500 ft.; Graig ddu, 700 ft.), sheer cliffs dropping at once from 

 the highest level, like those of Flamborough Head, do not 

 occur. The way of these is rather to slope down — often 

 rapidly, indeed, with a face more or less broken — for some dis- 

 tance, and end in a sheer cliff of, comparatively speaking, no 

 great height, and perhaps an outwork of jagged rocks formed by 

 the wearing of the sloping strata. Sometimes little rocky holms, 

 parted from the cliff, lie just off shore. When these steep slopes 

 are covered with heather or dwarf gorse, or much broken, with 

 outcropping rocks, it is easy to approach the cliff-edge ; but 

 when, as is often the case, these great slopes are steep as a 

 house-roof, somewhat hog-backed, and merely covered with short 

 turf (doubly short and slippery when I was there after a long 

 spell of dry weather), the risk of a slip, with small chance of a 

 recovery, becomes too great. On one of these slopes I caught 

 the Irish Burnet Moth, which Mr. Coward discovered there some 

 years ago. Swarms of Puffins inhabit St. Tudwal's Island. As 

 you approach the island you pass through great numbers scat- 

 tered over the sea, and they sit in masses on the land ; the turf 

 in places is riddled with their holes, and the air is full of birds 

 coming and going. Towards dusk many more come in from 

 distant feeding grounds. There is also another great colony on 

 Mercrosse, on the west side, and in a less degree on the grassy 

 slope up from the landing-place. Puffins were sitting there, 

 thickly gathered, on the flattened-down turf and sea-pink ; per- 

 haps a third as many more were on the sea, and at least another 



