634 MR. J. H. GURNEY ON BIRDS OF THE PEMBROKESHIRE ISLANDS. 
there were fully 300 nests, which was more than when he was 
there in 1893. 
Five or six piebald Gannets, handsome fellows in the second 
year’s plumage, were flying near the rock, but there were no black 
ones, and I was much surprised at seeing the piebald birds, as 
they have been said never to frequent breeding stations. At the 
instigation of Professor Newton I made many enquiries as to the 
age of this settlement, but without much definite result. Many 
of the fishermen could remember them for twenty years or so, and 
one named John Watts could speak to their having been on 
Grassholm rock over forty years, while one of the oldest inhabitants, 
Mr. Williams, of St. David’s, remembered that his father-in-law, 
Henry Bowen, assured him there were Gannets there as far back 
as 1820, but not many of them.* Since then they appear to have 
been on different occasions somewhat persecuted, so that at one 
time the settlement was very low, but in spite of all vicissitudes 
never entirely deserted. 
A good account of Grassholm island by Mr. R. Drane is to be 
found in the Transactions of the Cardiff Naturalist’s Society, 1893-4 
(vol. xxvi. p. 1), but I think his estimate of the large Puffin 
settlement is much too high. It is twelve miles from St. David’s, 
but is better reached from Milford : there is only one landing 
place, which is on the south side. Mr. Drane remarks from obser- 
vation that two Gannets, presumably its father and mother, will 
feed the same young Gannet alternately. 
The North lhsHor. 
‘ The Bishop’ and a cluster of smaller rocks known as ‘The Clerks 
lie about two miles west of Ramsey, but we did not go near enough to 
them to see the birds, which I was informed breed there, including 
a pair of Peregrine Falcons, whose eggs had been recently taken for 
some collector. This species is unfortunately a good deal persecuted, 
and is not nearly so common as it might be, — the pair at Ramsey had 
recently lost their eggs. Pembrokeshire Falcons had a reputation 
in the time of Henry II., who sent thither every year for eyesses 
(the nestlings), see ‘The Worthies of England’ endeavoured by 
Thomas Fuller, D.D., m.dc.lxii. 
* It was most likety from Grassholm that a Gannet’s egg in Prof. Newton’s 
collection, presented to him by the late Mr. A. P. Sealy, inscribed “ South 
Wales, Stack Rock ” came, and this egg, Prof. Newton tells me, was taken 
prior to 1864. 
