214 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



failed to find the young ones. A small colony of Lesser Terns 

 nest on the beach ; several birds were fishing at the river-mouth, 

 and we found two nests containing eggs on the shingle. 



Holy Island, or Holyhead Island, the most westerly part of 

 Anglesea, has on its north side the busy seaport of Holyhead, 

 but the population and the bustle and noise incidental to the 

 important railway and steamship traffic are concentrated within 

 a comparatively small area ; to the west of the town the coast is 

 little frequented, save by visitors to the South Stack Lighthouse. 

 In the breeding season the rugged and precipitous cliffs between 

 the town and the Stacks, and thence southward to Penrhyn- 

 mawr, are resorted to by many birds. 



Within a mile of the breakwater a pair of Merlins were 

 nesting on the slope above the cliffs, while there is a Peregrine's 

 eyrie not two miles from the town. Even if the angry barking 

 of the falcon, as she flew in wide circles over the sea and cliffs, 

 had not proclaimed the fact, the scattered feathers of slaughtered 

 Stock-Doves and domestic Pigeons would have shown that the 

 birds were nesting here. On June 1st we made out two young 

 Peregrines scrambling about on a grassy ledge half-way down 

 the sheer cliff; their primaries and tail-feathers were distinctly 

 visible through the down. The tiercel, as so frequently happens, 

 disappeared when we had only been in the neighbourhood a few 

 minutes, but so long as we remained in the vicinity — fully an 

 hour— the falcon, though more wary than others we have met 

 with, was never far away ; the crags rang with her fierce bark. 

 Once or twice she settled on one or other of two grassy ledges at 

 a little distance from the nest — these birds always use certain 

 points of vantage as look-out stations — but for a long time she 

 would not go to the ledge where the young ones were ; at last 

 she did so, and then we discovered them. 



A week later we visited another Peregrine's eyrie, some 

 miles to the south-east. Although we failed to see the nestlings, 

 there was no doubt that the pair had young, for there were 

 feathers of slaughtered victims in several places on the ledges 

 of a grand cliff in which the falcon evinced special interest. 

 She flew out over the sea and along the cliffs, barking defiance, 

 for more than half an hour before she settled on a small ledge 

 which projected from the vertical cliff-face. The tiercel remained 



