94 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



ANGLESEA BIED-NOTES. 



By S. G. Cummings and Chaeles Oldham. 



In the latter half of June, 1905, we spent a week at Bull Bay, 

 on the north coast of Anglesea. Our chief object was to visit the 

 breeding-place of the Arctic and Koseate Terns at the Skerries, 

 which for various reasons we had been unable to do in three 

 previous years. The rocky islets which constitute the Skerries 

 — or, to give them their Welsh name, Ynysoedd Moelroniaid — 

 are situate two miles north-west of Carmel Head, and about eight 

 miles north of Holyhead. They are familiar objects to passen- 

 gers on the Cork boats, and the deep-sea craft which pass close 

 inshore along the north coast of Anglesea on their way to and 

 from Liverpool, but are seldom visited, and, save for the light- 

 housemen, are uninhabited. Indeed, a trip to the Skerries, 

 whether from Holyhead to the south, or from Cemmaes or Bull 

 Bay to the east, is not one to be lightly undertaken. It is only 

 possible to land in calm weather, the currents run strongly be- 

 tween the islets and the mainland, and there must be a favour- 

 able conjunction of wind and tide to enable one to reach the place 

 at all in a sailing-boat. The evening of June 22nd was wonder- 

 fully clear, and up to 10.15 we could from the cliffs at Bull Bay 

 see the broken outline of the Manx hills, forty miles away, 

 silhouetted plainly against the sunset. Our boatman augured 

 that if the light easterly wind held the tide would serve at four 

 o'clock, and we might reach the Skerries on the ebb, to return 

 with the flood. We put out from the little harbour at Porth 

 Llechog in the grey of the morning, sailing and drifting — for the 

 strong tide helped us when the wind failed— westward along the 

 coast, whose sheer cliffs topped by heathy brows are among the 

 finest in North Wales, and seen to the greatest advantage from 

 the sea. Skirting Hell's Mouth — the ill-omened bay where an 

 offshore wind sweeping down through a gap in the low hills 



