368 
LARIM. 
Gobbins, attaining to perhaps two hundred and fifty feet in ele- 
vation direct above the sea, and situated just outside the northern 
entrance to Belfast Bay, I obtained the following information on 
the subject of birds breeding there. The sea-birds which now do 
so annually are the razorbill and guillemot, both numerously, but 
becoming gradually scarcer ; the black guillemot (about twelve 
pair) ; the lesser black -backed gull (four pair) ; and the herring- 
gull (probably a thousand pair). The common cormorant bred 
there regularly until 1844, but not since. Puffins and kittiwakes 
(the former seldom) appear on the sea about the rocks, but do not 
breed. Of land-birds , peregrine falcons have an eyrie there, and 
several pair of kestrels nidify. One pair of ravens, numbers of 
grey crows, and still more of jackdaws, annually build, as do a 
colony consisting of some hundred house-martins. A pair of 
choughs had a nest annually until 1847. 
The species reported to me as breeding at the cliffs of the island 
of Lambay, off the Dublin coast, in 1850, were puffins, razorbills, 
common and black guillemots, common 'and green cormorants (P. 
carbo and P. graculus ), greater and lesser black-backed gulls, 
herring-gulls, kittiwakes, and Manx shearwaters.* In 1849, the 
lesser black-backed gull was not observed there, and of the 
greater ( L . marinus) there were three pair; herring -gulls and 
kittiwakes were very numerous. The raven's nest was thrice 
robbed of six eggs ; and four of the shearwaters were taken from 
the holes in which their nests were placed and wantonly destroyed 
by boys. 
I shall here notice the different methods I have witnessed on 
the coast of Ireland of descending steep rocks for birds or eggs. 
At the Gobbins, a “ climber" (alluded to at p. 357) has been going 
down the rocks occasionally in the season for above thirty years, and 
has a monopoly of the aerial exercise in consequence of being the 
only person in the vicinity supplied with a rope for the purpose. 
His preparation was the work of a moment : — throwing his shoes 
off, and a noose of the rope over his head, so as to embrace his 
body beneath the arms, down he dropped from the summit, with 
* Mr. II. J. Montgomery. 
