DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLE OF MAN xxvii 
some Puffins, and in early summer bright with innumerable 
primroses and hyacinths, which latter carpet abundantly in 
many places the interior of the islet, together with richly 
aromatic patches of ground ivy. Most of the surface of 
the Calf is covered with heather and bracken,’ but about 
the one farmhouse are some cultivated fields, and from the 
south a pretty little ravine leads up to it. This ‘Glen,’ 
rich in ferns and with a few low trees and bushes, is 
much prized by migrating small birds. At the back of the 
farm is also a very small plantation. The whole area is 
six hundred and sixteen acres, and the islet is about five 
miles in circumference.” Nearly a mile beyond its ex- 
tremity lies the little tide-rock of the Chickens with its 
tall lighthouse. The high cliffs of the mainland coast, 
continued past Spanish Head, and the well-known but fine 
scenery of the ‘Chasms’ cliffs and the Sugar Loaf, end at 
Perwick, beyond which creek Port St. Mary, its little 
harbour locked in by low rocky points and jutting reefs, 
lies, closely sheltered under Cronk Skibbylt, up which its 
newer houses are beginning to climb from its one long street. 
Passing over for the present the level shores which from 
Port St. Mary to Santon interrupt the continuity of cliff, 
and the rather low though rocky peninsula of Langness, we 
again, at Cass ny Hawin, meet steep escarpments, and a not 
very high but very broken coast-line extends to Santon 
Head, affording nesting places for Jackdaws, ‘ Greybacks,’ 
and Kestrels. North of Santon Head come the gull-haunted 
cliffs of Pistol, lofty and massive, recalling the best features 
1 There seems to be no gorse on the Calf. 
2 The Calf was doubtless inhabited in the Middle Ages, as is shown by the 
site of a keeil or chapel, and the discovery of a singular and beautiful carved 
stone, ‘an example of pure Byzantine art’ (Kermode and Herdman). On the 
summit of the Burrow are slight remains of a rude fort or beacon-station. For 
the curious story of the sojourn of Thos. Bushell in the seventeenth century see 
Roeder (Manz Notes and Queries, p. 62). The numerous place-names of the 
Calf show the mixture of Gaelic and Norse usual in Man. None of them seems 
to commemorate the abundant bird life of the islet. 
