98 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



birds drift in an ever-shifting cloud above one's head. The black 

 bill and the long streamers of the Roseate Tern are characters 

 more readily recognized, especially when the birds are on the 

 ground. This species does not raise or depress its wings so 

 much as the Common and Arctic Terns, and its flight conse- 

 quently appears to be more buoyant, though this may be due in 

 some measure to its more elegant shape. The notes of the 

 Roseates — the harsh " craak ' ' of alarm and the call-note ' ' chewick " 

 — were easily discernible in the babel of the Arctics' voices, and 

 are perhaps the best means of focusing attention on the birds 

 when they are flying in a vast company of other Terns. The 

 Roseate, however, is a more silent bird than the Common or 

 Arctic Tern. 



It is a matter of common knowledge that the Roseate Tern 

 nests on the Skerries — we have no intention of revealing the 

 exact locality of a second colony in another part of Wales, known, 

 we believe, to only a few ornithologists — but the inaccessibility 

 of the place has secured the birds in some measure from the 

 rapacity of egg-collectors. It is, however, a deplorable fact that 

 in the past the lightkeepers have been induced, sometimes by 

 the payment of considerable sums, to obtain eggs. The extent 

 to which one collector has engaged in this abominable traffic 

 merits the strongest condemnation. To expose him would serve 

 no useful purpose, as, happily, a better state of things now 

 obtains. The Roseate Terns are under supervision, and all who 

 are really interested in our avifauna may hope that, with the 

 protection now afforded it, the bird will increase in this, one of 

 the very few places in Britain where it still breeds. 



Ynys Amlwch (the East Mouse) and Maen-bugail (the West 

 Mouse) are bare stacks of no great height, washed over by high 

 tides, and support no colonies of seafowl. Ynys Badric (the 

 Middle Mouse), largest of the three, is a steep rocky stack which 

 rises from deep water about half a mile from the bold headland 

 to the east of Cemmaes Bay, and midway between the other two 

 islands. Its summit, clothed with thick beds of scurvy-grass 

 and Atriplex, accommodates about a hundred pairs of Herring- 

 Gulls. As our boat came to anchor under the lee of the island 

 on the afternoon of the 21st, we could see young Herring- Gulls 

 running about in all directions on the rocks and in the herbage, 



