42 C. AND H. CANDLER ON BIRD-LIFE OF 8KELLIG ROCKS. 
which, from a base with an area of no more than forty-five acres, 
rises to a height of 714 feet. The best landing-place is on the 
south-eastern side of the island. Here a dark fissure in the cliff 
goes by the name of “ Blind Cave,” or “Blind Man’s Cave,” and 
into this we brought the boat, and moored her safe from contact 
with the rocks, between two iron rings socketed into the opposite 
walls of the chasm. A few rough steps lead up to the lower 
termination of the road to the lighthouse, a gradually ascending 
terrace cut out of the cliff, and protected on the seaward side by 
a low massive wall. Not far from the landing-place, the road 
passes above a great cavern known as “ Seal Cave,” the breeding- 
place of a large colony of Kittiwakes. The birds had not yet 
begun to lay, but were busy preparing their nests on the narrow 
ledges of the rocks below, keeping up an incessant and musical 
clamour. Afterwards, on another part of the island, we saw the 
birds plucking grass for their nests from a steep slope of turf about 
which they were fluttering. 
Soon after leaving the Kittiwakes, we met, at a turn of the road, 
the head light-keeper, Mr. dames Walshe. The lighthouse being 
on the west side of the island, the approach of our boat had not 
been observed, and our visit was unexpected. Mr. Walshe is full 
of information on the birds of his island, in which he takes a keen 
interest ; and in his company, after inspecting the lighthouse and 
the homes of himself and his assistant, we undertook a long ramble, 
or rather climb, round the rock. The lower lighthouse, at present 
in use, stands with the light-keepers’ houses in a small paved yard, 
the site of which has been excavated in the rock. From the outer 
wall a stone may be dropped into the sea two hundred feet below. 
Even at this height the yard and houses are sometimes Hooded by 
the driving spray, and in a gale last winter twenty heavy coping 
stones were dislodged from the wall. Just below the lighthouse, 
the ledges near the base of a perpendicular chasm, similar in 
character to “ Seal Cave,” are the breeding quarters of another 
large colony of Kittiwakes. Skirting the brink of this chasm the 
road is continued to the upper lighthouse; it is now in a bad 
condition, for in winter storms the broken water driven against 
the face of the cliff pours down the pathway in a continuous 
torrent which nothing can withstand. Since the completion of the 
lighthouse on the Tearaght Rock, eleven miles to the north of the 
