NOTES ON THE ORNITHOLOGY OF LLEYN. 171 



space on the riggings, stays, crosstrees, and yards being occu- 

 pied." Dead birds were found in every direction. " At daybreak 

 the birds on the vessels flew away. Upon inspection there were 

 thousands of dead birds in the quarry, on the top of the Bock, 

 and on the stretch of land that reaches from the Gimblet Eock 

 in the direction of the South Beach." Many of the birds were 

 injured about the head, and there is no doubt but that, having 

 lost their bearings in the thick dark night, and being attracted 

 by the light of the flares, numbers of them struck against the 

 precipitous seaward face of the Eock and other obstacles, while 

 others more fortunate settled down within the influence of the 

 light. The quarryman's wife, writing to me, said: — "On the 

 morfa thousands stood on the rigging and the ropes of the vessels, 

 and they say it was a very grand sight to see the glittering 

 colours in the light. . . . There were birds of every description. 

 Most of them that were on the vessels flew away at daybreak." 

 She adds that there had been a great gale on the Irish coast a 

 day or two before, which did not reach Pwllheli, but the weather 

 came very foggy. As I did not hear of the event until a fort- 

 night after it happened, I had no opportunity of examining any 

 of the victims ; but the following species were mentioned in the 

 papers : — Starling, Thrush, Blackbird, Snipe, Woodcock, Eobin, 

 Curlew, and Kingfishers ; the last named seems a very unlikely 

 one to occur in such a way, and possibly a mistake was made. 

 At St. Tudwal's Lighthouse the same night they had lots of 

 Starlings, Blackbirds, and Eeclwings about the light, but saw no 

 other birds ; there were, however, more Blackbirds than the 

 keeper ever saw at one time previously. He notices that the 

 Starling strikes more frequently than any other bird. 



Richardson's Skua. — Dr. A. M. McAldowie, of Stoke-on- 

 Trent, writes me word that he saw a white-breasted adult of this 

 species near the Gimblet Eock, Pwllheli, on June 23rd, 1901, 

 the morning after a storm. Also that in June, 1903, he 

 found a dead specimen on the beach near Pwllheli, which, with 

 Puffins and Eazorbills, had apparently been washed up in a 

 storm some time previously. 



Fire-crested Wren. — At the sale at Stevens's (May 12th, 

 1904) of the final portion of the collection formed by Mr. E. 

 Bidwell, lot 244 consisted of a Firecrest, male, March 24th, 1878, 



