44 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



brown of autumn, and the grass on the cliff-tops was almost as 

 green as in May. On Feb. 10th Potentilla Fragariastrum was 

 making a show on the banks with its white starry flowers, and 

 the lambs were getting quite strong and big, having apparently 

 been in the open all their lives. 



Every day spring seemed to advance ; yet it was not until the 

 13th (a most delicious morning) that, strolling over the morfa 

 towards the Gimblet Kock for a few minutes before leaving for 

 Anglesey, I heard Sky-Larks singing, and a Chaffinch, which 

 succeeded in ringing out his song properly. 



Spring comes early to those parts of far-western Lleyn which 

 lie close to the sea, and sheltered under Mynydd Mawr and 

 Mynydd Annelog. At Aberdaron (where they had had no snow, 

 and only a few days' frost all the winter) it was as warm on 

 Feb. 9th as it is on an average summer day. The lambs, born 

 at Christmas, were big and strong ; I gathered " palm " (Salix) 

 with the golden anthers fully out, and the lesser celandine in 

 flower ; and, as I drove back through the Nant of the Horan, 

 the alder-twigs shone with a ruddy hue. Now that the trees are 

 bare, one notices the long grey lichen on them ; this often covers 

 old thorn-bushes, especially about the far end of Lleyn. One 

 appreciates, too, the ivy which drapes the thin oaks in the woods 

 there, and the seedling hollies, which spring up thickly in some 

 plantations. The Rooks at Sarn were very busy and noisy about 

 their nests. 



So much for the winter climate and conditions of Lleyn. I 

 feel I have taken up too much space with it, but I had a purpose 

 in view. How strange it is that birds which we know often suffer 

 from severe weather do not seem to care for — or, at least, to be 

 attracted by — a soft winter climate, which, so far as we can tell, 

 would ensure them all they want. I expected to find all the 

 resident and winter-resident Passeres common to Wales congre- 

 gating in this mild western land, where there is ample arable 

 land for the hard-billed small birds to feed over ; but I was quite 

 disappointed. The ordinary small birds one sees about the fields 

 in Oxon were conspicuous by their scarcity, almost by their 

 absence. I have seen, I should think, ten times as many in one 

 flock at home as I saw in Lleyn during the fortnight I spent 

 walking about the country. Purely woodland birds were as 



