Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/30

10 for the lesser black-back in particular seems to look upon the carrion crow as a dangerous egg-robber, quite forgetful of the maxim that "those who live in glass houses should not throw stones." Oyster-catchers, one or two pairs, nest in the thrift, and sit, apparently indifferently, on some mound or other elevated position to watch the behaviour of any visitors; all the time they keep up a steady "pic-pic," probably a warning to their mates or young when they are hatched. Rock-pipits by their anxious peepings reveal the fact that they have nests in the cliffs, and their rather smaller relatives, meadow-pipits or titlarks, find plenty of cover for their brown eggs. Stunted bushes shelter an odd pair of blackbirds and the ubiquitous hedge-Sparrow, which last has an occasional visit, for domestic reasons, from a mainland cuckoo. An abundance of holes in the ruins and the neglected house are an attraction for starlings; these holes are mostly tenanted. Wheatears and stock-doves make use of the old burrows, and as the Skylark may often be heard in full song on the island we may conclude that it, too, is a member of the Puffin avifauna.

"The Smyrnium olusatrum or Alexanders almost covers the south-west of the island," says Pennant, "and is greedily eaten (boiled) by the sailors who are just arrived from long voyages." Alexanders still grows in profusion, but now more on the east than the west; scurvy-grass is there, too, plenty of it; but few mariners land on Puffin after "long voyages"; it is doubtful if they ever did. In July the thick mass of stems gives shelter for the mottled grey young gulls; in September I have seen starlings in vast numbers feeding on the ripe seeds; all had not been reared on Puffin, they had come over for the feast. Hyacinths abound in spring; I have seen a herring-gull's nest decorated with a ring of these flowers, plucked by the æsthetic bird. Another gull,