WINTER NOTES FROM LLEYN. 45 



plentiful as usual, and the Crow family also ; but the Larks, 

 Finches, and Buntings had almost all gone. The fact is, that a 

 great many small birds leave Lleyn in winter, instead of coming 

 to it, as I expected they would. 



I remembered one October day in 1884, which I spent on the 

 Merionethshire coast across the bay, noticing some flocks of 

 Larks flying out from that shore, and heading for the Carnarvon 

 coast, and I thought at the time that they were migrating thither 

 for the winter ; but it seems it was not so. Mr. Caton Haigh 

 kindly writes to me on this subject :— " I quite agree with you 

 about the scarcity of small birds in N.W. Wales, except the 

 resident woodland species, as Tits, &c. I think the Corn-Bunting 

 is entirely a summer visitor, while the Linnet, Yellowhammer, 

 and Eeed-Bunting receive large accessions in numbers in spring." 

 A few Chaffinches, Bobins, a Wren or two, Hedge-Sparrows, and 

 House-Sparrows are, with Tits, about all the small birds one 

 generally sees in going about. I used to think I should have 

 seen some hundreds of hard-billed small birds about home for 

 every one I saw in a day's walk in Lleyn. Of course, Sparrows 

 do not swarm there as they do with us, but this I have allowed 

 for. At Nevin — frost-free Nevin — one afternoon, though the 

 little fields were green and the gorse was gay, birds were very 

 scarce. I saw a few Yellow Buntings, an immature Pied Wag- 

 tail, a Mistle-Thrush, two Magpies, and Blackbirds in plenty, 

 and a few Chaffinches, but heard no song from either ; there was 

 a pair of Stonechats, but no Corn-Buntings. Not much, all 

 told, to see in a sunny February stroll. The woods at Bodfean, 

 where the storm-broken and moss-clothed trees reared their 

 heads on high from the damp Nant, and the tall luxuriant 

 laurels, were silent and almost birdless each time I passed 

 through them, save for a few Wood-Pigeons, a single Green 

 Woodpecker, a female Sparrow-Hawk, Swans on the sombre 

 pool (darker and more gloomy than ever), and an old Heron, 

 which sailed in on his grey ghostly pinions, and settled half-way 

 up a larch. 



But although ordinary small birds did not abound in Lleyn, 

 there were many most interesting species to watch ; in all I saw 

 eighty-one species — a very good and rich winter list. 



It seems strange that a larger proportion of the great hosts 



