46 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



coldest, bleakest part of the coach journey — purple is the bright- 

 ening colour, and when this (as in the Nant of the Horan) caps 

 a wooded slope the effect is beyond words. The masses of rag- 

 wort sometimes make the roadsides yellow. Broad stretches of 

 glowing purple light up Ehiw, Ehos Hirwaen, and similar places, 

 which are so brown and gloomy in spring. And there are purple 

 splashes on the hedge-banks, where the large harebells hardly 

 disturb the general effect ; and the dull purple of the hemp- 

 agrimony is a feature of the roadsides on the lower ground. 

 The great masses of bracken have now turned a deep or 

 "prophet's" green, and the barley is ripening, though oats 

 are green. It is quite a barley country, and in some respects 

 does not seem much altered since the days of Camden, who 

 wrote of "Llein, which runneth forth with a narrow and even 

 by-land, having larger and more open fields than the rest of the 

 country, and the same yielding Barley most plenteously." You 

 can still here get barley bread. Among the floral beauties and 

 rarities of the cliffs I found an everlasting pea (the Lathyrus 

 sylvaticas) in great masses. I know, too, where to climb down 

 the rocks and sit where the sea-spleenwort grows in profusion. 



The Choughs about the Nevin bird-rock have, I believe, 

 become almost extinct now. When I wrote my description of 

 the rock a few years ago I refrained from mentioning them. 

 But now they are gone no harm can be done by placing on 

 record their former status. At the end of May, 1902, I spent 

 the greater part of two days at the rock. On the southern side 

 of it there is a rounded green-topped cliff frequented by Kitti- 

 wakes, Guillemots, and Razorbills, and on the southern side of 

 that the Choughs were going into the cliff. It was not easy to 

 see much of them, although I supposed they were feeding young. 

 They came over the top and shot down almost perpendicularly, 

 and then went in to the cliff below where I stood. Presently 

 they came out, beat up the cliff-face, and flew away inland. I 

 saw four at the same time, and came to the conclusion that 

 there were four pairs. I saw another pair which were said to 

 have young in a quarry in the mountain (Gwyliwr), a little 

 back from the coast between the rock and Nevin. A pair of 

 Peregrines were breeding in the rock at that time. The eyrie 

 was in about the middle of the rock ; in a square-shaped hollow 



