ROCK DOVE 181 
Robertson, about the same time, writing of the birds 
inhabiting the Calf, says: ‘Gulls, wild Pigeons, and Puffins 
are the most numerous.’ 
Mr. A. G. More learned from Dr. Crellin of the breeding 
of this species in the Isle of Man, and it is probably from 
his paper on the ‘Distribution of Birds in Great Britain,’ 
that the Rock Dove has been noted as Manx in standard 
works. 
In Maughold Mr. J. R. Moore tells me that numbers 
used to be found between Dhoon and Port Mooar, and Mr. 
J. Quayle, of Ballakilpherick, states that he has seen them in 
hundreds on the coast between Fleshwick and Dalby, and 
mentions especially the long and narrow Ooig Stack and 
the arched passage called Ghaw’ Hooil as haunts. Mr. 
H. E. Gelling remembers that forty years ago they were 
numerous in a cave on the Santon coast, the many 
dark caves and fissures of which seem peculiarly suitable. 
Strooan Calmane, or Pigeon Stream, which falls into the sea 
over the cliffs of Douglas Head, perhaps takes its name 
from the Rock Dove. 
Old residents told Mr. Haddon, of Maughold, that wild 
Pigeons formerly bred on the rocky slopes of North Barrule, 
a mile or two inland, and this report, if correct, likely refers 
to Rock Doves, .or feral House Pigeons, as it is not probable 
that the Stock Dove had then arrived. 
In Thompson’s time Rock Doves nested inland in the 
Trish mountains. 
In spite of this abundance at no very remote time, it is 
doubtful whether any pure-bred Rock Doves now exist in 
Man. It is rather difficult to account for the extinction of 
a bird which nested so numerously, though Mr. Quayle says 
' 1 The word Ghaw (chasm, cleft), familiar under various spellings in the place- 
names of Iceland, Orkney, and Shetland, is in Man confined to the south-western 
coast, where it often occurs, 
