10 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



grow a kind of willow for bands, present a greater growth of 

 elder, bramble, and tall weeds. And there, and along a bank 

 near one of them, I found inany of the small birds I noticed. 

 The banks are gay with thrift, vernal squill, the sweetly-scented 

 burnet-rose, gorse, sea-campion, and a few foxgloves; and I saw 

 some dwarf bluebells and the lady's-fingers (Anthyllis). Excellent 

 samphire (Crithmum maritimum) grows in abundance on the low 

 rocks, and has been gathered for a hundred years at least. 



On the east side the coast of Bardsey presents a front of dark 

 coloured rock to the restless sea. Here on the sloping rock- 

 faces, and the ledges, the Herring-Gulls, which breed there in 

 considerable numbers, are conspicuous. The steep shelving 

 rocks are varied with more precipitous faces, overhung ledges, 

 hollows, and chasms. Along the coast of the lower lying parts 

 of the island there is a broad breastwork of broken jagged rock, 

 high enough sometimes to form low cliffs, and indented with 

 yawning chasms, whose sides are high and steep enough in 

 some cases to accommodate the Chough. Where these rocks 

 merge into the short weedy turf the Oystercatchers breed, the 

 pairs flying on to the outer rocks as one approaches, where they 

 sit and cry "feet," or "fie" or "pic," an unlimited number of 

 times, and sometimes "my feet." Rock-Pipits flit about too; I 

 hesitate to say breed, for I think of the hours I have spent in an 

 always unsuccessful search for this bird's nest. Where the one 

 little inlet affords a harbour and safe lying for the boats, a stretch 

 of sand and seaweedy rocks is uncovered at low tide. Bardsey 

 is included in Willughby's ' Ornithology ' (1678), among the list 

 " Of some remarkable Isles, Cliffs, and Rocks about England, 

 where Sea-fowl do yearly build and breed in great numbers," but 

 no particulars relating to it are given. I do not, however, think 

 that Bardsey could have been a great sea-fowl station within the 

 period of modern history. The then Vicar of Aberdaron (in 

 whose parish Bardsey lies), in the account of the island with 

 which he furnished Bingley in 1798, asserts, it is true, that 

 " among these precipices the intrepid inhabitants, in the spring 

 of the year, employ themselves in collecting the eggs of the 

 various species of sea-fowl that frequent them " ; and he describes 

 the manner of climbing pursued in collecting the eggs and the 

 samphire. The Bardsey men gather eggs now, but these are all» 



