NOTES ON THE BIRDS OE LLEYN. 203 



green grass and masses of bright green Cochlearia, and clumps 

 of white-flowered campion, all contrasting with the blue sky and 

 sparkling sea of a fine sunny morning, and enlivened by crowds 

 of birds, make up a most fascinating scene. 



I devoted the two windy days to going round the cliffs and 

 over the ""mountains" about Aberdaron, although the gusts were 

 sometimes so furious that it was impossible to stand up. The 

 eastern cliffs, though often nearly sheer, are comparatively low, 

 and, being sheltered partly by the land, are often luxuriantly 

 clothed at the top with gorse, bramble, &c, and even clothed 

 with ivy. Kestrels, Pigeons, and Crows nest along them, and 

 the Heron is believed to have bred in one spot; the Barn Owl 

 also occurs. But the great cliffs on the west have a beauty and 

 grandeur of their own; their long steep sides sweeping down to 

 the sea are partly grassy, lined with tiny sheep-paths, and partly 

 clothed with long heather. At the foot are shelves of grey rock 

 brightened with dashes of yellow lichen, and in spring gay with 

 pink thrift where they merge into the grassy cliff. The cliffs end 

 with a broken outwork of jagged rock, or sometimes form a 

 perpendicular or overhanging rock-face, with an occasional hollow 

 or cave inhabited by Shags. There is a small colony of Guille- 

 mots, Razorbills, and Shags in the steep cliff and cave at Porth 

 Felen, and another at Pen y Cil. Herring-Gulls are to be seen 

 where the jagged rock joins the green cliff, and doubtless breed 

 here and there all along the coast in small numbers, as also do 

 Oystercatchers. The upper and exposed parts of Mynydd Mawr 

 and Mynydd Annelog are barren and wind-swept, sparingly 

 clothed with short heather and wiry grass, but strewn with 

 weathered stones ; and all around the naked rocks — 'the bare 

 bones of Lleyn — peep out. Bird-life is very scanty. An occa- 

 sional Meadow-Pipit or Wheatear, a pair of Kestrels, and Jack- 

 daws, of course in numbers, may be seen ; but I watched a Raven 

 sitting on a stone half-way down the cliff, and caught sight of a 

 Merlin as it skimmed over the top. 



This is an old breeding haunt of the Chough. There are six 

 eggs in the Wolley collection, taken, according to Mr. Wilmot's 

 MS. catalogue in the Cambridge Museum, " on a mountain in 

 Aberdaron in Carnarvonshire called Mynydd yn Nyclog, opposite 

 to Bardsey Island," in 1852, and another, probably from the same 



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