xviii DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLE OF MAN 
shingle forms the Point of Ayre itself, and is continued 
for some distance on either side of it. 
Close to the point stands the tall lighthouse with its 
surrounding buildings. Eight miles south-east, and six 
miles from Ramsey, the Bahama light-vessel marks a 
submerged bank. 
On these northern shores the dominant species of bird 
are the Ringed Plover and Oyster-catcher, 
South of the sandhills the northern tract has many 
ponds (elsewhere rare in Man), sometimes occupying the 
sites of old marl-pits. In its south-western part, between 
Sulby and Jurby, is the Curragh, formerly an extensive 
marsh with lakes and islets, now drained to the condition 
of damp meadow-land, and divided by many hedges of 
willow. Towards its west end, however, in Ballaugh 
parish, there remains a patch of unreclaimed land, much 
cut up by old turf-diggings, the water lodging in which 
forms ponds and trenches of varying extent, which accord- 
ing to their age have been more or less filled up by the 
remains of their profuse vegetation. This tract is an 
interesting refuge for marsh-loving birds, as the Sedge 
Warbler, Reed Bunting, Coot, Water-rail, and Little Grebe. 
The shallow waters, seldom, except in a few drainage 
trenches, more than knee deep, form in winter consider- 
able open sheets, but are in May choked by an immense 
luxuriance of flowering bog-bean, and later by a rich 
vegetation of alisma and purple loosestrife, with cotton 
grass and orchis (pink, purple, and cream-coloured) on 
their margins, while the region is perfumed by endless 
thickets of sweet-gale, and the drier ground surrounds it 
with a frame of yellow gorse. The charm of the Curragh 
land has been well pourtrayed by T. E. Brown in some 
of his characteristic poems, and his published letters are 
full of similar allusions. A patch of marsh ground of some 
