170 THE ZOOLOGIST 



SUPPLEMENTAEY NOTES ON THE OENITHOLOGY 



OF LLEYN. 



By 0. V. Aplin, F.L.B. 



A Great Immigration. — On the night of the 17th (or rather 

 about one o'clock in the morning of the 18th) March, 1904, a 

 most remarkable migration and destruction of birds took place 

 at Pwllheli. I have drawn up the following account of it from 

 two newspaper reports, and letters from a resident whose husband 

 was at work in the quarry at the time, and from the keeper of 

 St. Tudwal's Lighthouse. The wind was north-east and the 

 night fine at Pwllheli, but at St. Tudwal's the weather wa3 what 

 they call " misty rain," i. e. bordering on a fog. The men in the 

 quarry on the Gimblet Eock (Careg yr Imbril), at the entrance 

 of Pwllheli harbour, were working extra time loading vessels, and 

 flares were burning which lit up the whole place. This island- 

 like rock juts out to some extent from the coast-line, and from its 

 height is a very noticeable feature in a long stretch of low coast. 

 Suddenly the workmen were startled by what some have termed 

 a " flow of birds," and others a " shower," descending on the 

 rock. " Thousands of birds dropped on the quarry, the rock, the 

 wharves, and the vessels close to, in a dying state. In a short 

 time the ground was thickly covered with birds, most of them 

 dead or in a dying condition, whilst a cloud of birds hovered in 

 a helpless condition a few yards up in the air. At daybreak the 

 seashore was found strewn with hundreds of birds, evidently 

 drowned at sea, and washed ashore by the tide." This account 

 states that it was an inky dark night, and notices a theory that 

 the birds struck the Eock, which would be between the sea and 

 the place where the flares were burning. Another account said 

 that a shower of birds suddenly fell on the'workmen. " Thousands 

 of birds covered the ground in a few minutes— some dead, some 

 half-dead. The vessels at anchor close to the wharf appeared to 

 be instantly covered by birds from stem to stern, every available 



