THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 737.— November, 1902. 



NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF ANGLESEA. 

 By T. A. Coward and Charles Oldham. 



The Menai Straits, separating Anglesea from the mainland, 

 are so narrow that they alone would not account for any differ- 

 ence in the avifauna of the island from that of the adjacent 

 portions of North Wales; but the character of the country is 

 entirely different from that of Carnarvonshire. The rugged 

 mountains of the Snowdon Range, with their narrow glacial 

 valleys and ice-scooped and volcanic tarns, are replaced by low- 

 lying undulating country, under cultivation of a primitive sort, 

 interspersed with gorse-covered commons, extensive marshes, 

 and shallow reed-fringed pools. With the exception of the 

 isolated Holyhead Mountain, the high land is all to the north- 

 east, from whence the country gently slopes towards the western 

 shores, where the few insignificant sluggish rivers debouch in 

 sandy estuaries. 



Anglesea is singularly treeless, and the clumps of trees — 

 mostly ash — which here and there have been planted round the 

 more pretentious houses, bear evidence, in their gnarled trunks 

 and matted branches, of the fierce salt-laden winds that sweep 

 across the island. The sheltered shores of the Menai Straits, 

 however, are well wooded ; from Beaumaris to Llanidan are 

 extensive plantations, giving shelter to Warblers and other 



Zool. 4th ser. vol. IV., November, 1902. 2 i 



