Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/531

Rh The mobbing cries are a short squeaky "quik" and "que-ah," sometimes uttered together, "quik-que-ah," uttered quickly and peculiarly squeaky, and, under great excitement, fairly screamed; but the note is always a short one. There is no prettier ornament to a rocky coast than these Sea-pies, conspicuous from afar, and their ordinary high clear whistle "fy-feet" or "feet" is always a pleasing sound. I saw birds with and without the white collar, and six flying together (some of which were dull birds) might have been a family party, the young hatched early.

Lleyn is too well cultivated for much moorland to remain, but there are some little bits to be met with, inland as well as on some of the headlands, and at the bases of the mountains, where the soil has proved too barren for a race of farmers who wrest from every bit of land what goodness lies in it. I saw no signs of Curlews breeding when I was in Lleyn, but their nesting season was probably past. Curlews were there, both on the coast and on inland fields, in flocks; once I saw a score together. I did not often hear the breeding-call, but the ordinary resonant flying note "k'lyike" or "k'like," uttered about three times, could be heard frequently at Pwllheli, when they resorted to the harbour muds at low tide. I saw one Whimbrel. Four Dunlins, in the dress of birds hatched in the previous year, were so tame, on the sands at low tide, that I walked within three or four yards of them. Each one was resting on one leg, and they did not even trouble to put down the other one at first, but hopped away on one; so long did one bird remain thus that I began to think it had lost a leg. Afterwards they fed belly deep in the sea, and were occasionally lifted off their legs by the lap of a very gentle wavelet. Mr. Coward has seen flocks along the beach. This completes my list of waders. But Mr. Coward saw five Purple Sandpipers on St. Tudwal's Island on May 26th, 1893. Curiously enough, I received, a good many years ago, a pair of these birds, which were shot on May 14th on this island. A Turnstone was seen at the same time.

But, if Lleyn cannot boast of much in the way of mountains, few districts in southern Britain can match it for bold coast scenery; for, as Leland observes so quaintly, "Al Lene is as it were a pointe into the se." Many fine headlands stretch out into Cardigan and Carnarvon bays, and into St. George's Channel.