DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLE OF MAN XXV 
caves, especially near Peel, where the red sandstone is worn 
and rent into a thousand caverns and crevices, great and 
small, But this is all quite low, and though in the north 
part attractive to a few Herring Gulls, has no breeding 
places of rock-birds proper. The Grey Crow and Jackdaw 
and the Rock Pipit, which are found in every rocky portion 
of the coast, and the Heron, are dominant species here; 
Curlews and Oyster-catchers at low tide frequent the ebb 
from their more peculiar haunts to the north. 
South of Peel the scenery changes. The bold upland of 
Peel Hill, of which the Castle Island is an isolated outlier,’ 
is a narrow ridge between the western sea and the Neb 
valley ; it is clothed with gorse and heather, and breaks 
into a succession of brows and precipices, often overhanging 
deep water, and furnishing a home for numbers of Herring 
Gulls, Razorbills, and Shags. Round Contrary Head, with 
its deep caves, this is continued, though less steeply, and 
with scantier bird life to Glenmay, there being a number 
of small beaches under the cliffs. 
From Glenmay to the reef of the Niarbyl (tail) is low, 
though rocky, but south of the latter the coast again rapidly 
rises, past the jackdaw-haunted Gob Gameren and the rock 
waterfall of the Ushtey to the steep brows, bare of cultiva- 
tion, heather and bracken-clad and ending in cliffs, which 
fall from the ranges of Cronk ny Irey Lhaa and the Carnane 
to the sea. All along Shags and Gulls nest, with occasional 
Razorbills, and the same species are found across Fleshwick 
on the grand headland of Bradda, but less abundantly. 
From Port Erin, whose little bay now intervenes, to the 
Calf Sound there seem to be no sea-bird colonies, but they 
are large and frequent on the Calf, Spanish Head (opposite), 
1 This islet is walled all round almost to the cliff-edge, the rampart enclosing 
a well-known and picturesque assemblage of buildings of various dates and uses, 
military and ecclesiastical. 
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