46 LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
finally, in the spring of 1887, Mr. Archer was able to 
report to the committee that Sir Richard Bulkeley had 
kindly consented to let the L. M. B. C. have the use of the 
house on Puffin Island, as a biological station, at a nominal 
rent. A few members of the committee went down to the 
island in March, 1887, in order to examine carefully the 
condition of the house, and decide what should be done in 
the way of repairs. 
Puffin Island, or St. Seiriol’s Isle, or Priestholm, as 
it is variously called, was then an uninhabited island, 
with two more or less ruinous buildings :—an old square 
tower with a pyramidal stone roof, near the centre of 
the island, and supposed to be the remains of an ecclesi- 
astical building dating back to the twelfth century; 
and the former Dock Board observatory, a substantial 
brick and stone building, erected in 1841, and standing 
close to the cliff on the seaward or northern end of 
the island (see fig. 3). 














































































































Biological Station. Old Tower. 
Fig. 3. Puffin Island from the North.* 
The island is about five-eighths of a mile in length and 
300 yards in greatest breadth. It is separated from the 
* For the use of this woodcut, and of figures 4 and 5, I am indebted to the 
courtesy of Messrs, Macmillan and Co. The original drawings were made as 
illustrations for my article on Puffin Island, which appeared in ‘‘Nature” for 
July 21st, 1887, 
