THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 824.— February. 1910. 



SUMMER IN LLEYN, WITH SOME OTHER NOTES 

 ON THE BIRDS OF THE DISTRICT. 



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



A Puffin colony is always interesting in the breeding season, 

 but I think that at no other time is it so full of life and interest 

 as just when the young are hatched and still in the holes. It 

 was partly to study the Puffins at that stage, and partly to see 

 the hills and cliffs of Lleyn when they were ablaze with the bell- 

 heather in blossom, that I made my way down to that delectable 

 country in the last week in July, 1905, a season when for good 

 reasons the field ornithologist usually avoids the sea-coast places 

 which cater for visitors. The Puffin-warren on St. Tudwal's 

 islands is a very large one, and considering the small size of the 

 islands the crowds of birds one sees is extraordinary. The 

 warren is an old one. Pennant, who visited the islands in the 

 course of his tours (1773-6), mentions that there was a small 

 chapel on the larger island, of which a tradition still exists, and 

 that the then present inhabitants were sheep, rabbits, and, in 

 the season, Puffins. He does not refer to the old name Mer- 

 cross belonging to one of the islands, and marked on Speed's 

 and Camden's maps. The colony on the eastern island is really 

 enormous ; how many thousands of Puffins there are it is im- 

 possible to tell. Take, for instance, a piece of ground a chain 

 wide and three or four chains long, with Puffins sitting about a 

 Znol. 4th ser. vol. XIV., February, 1910. E 



