Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/534

500 above Pwllheli. Swifts were flying over the highest parts of Mynydd Mawr, some way from the most outlying cottage. Possibly most of the West Lleyn Swifts breed in natural sites. Mr. Coward has noticed the Nightjar in three localities. The Cuckoo was everywhere in average numbers, and a great many haunted the sand-hills at Abersoch, which are bordered on the inland side by a mass of bracken. Five were in sight at one time, beating over the fern. Whenever I passed I saw some, and one got up at my feet from under a bush. I noticed the Green Woodpecker several times, and saw some holes in an old ash at Llanbedrog. This is rather a common bird in suitable localities in North Wales, in my experience. For an early record of it in North Wales, we may refer to Giraldus Cambrensis, who, while travelling with Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the year 1188, seems to have heard a Green Woodpecker in a wood near the Menai Strait. It is true that some of the party declared it was an aureolus, and Giraldus thought rightly so; but other people since those days seemed to have been unable to distinguish between a Green Woodpecker and a Golden Oriole. It is a pity that Giraldus, who tells us something of the birds of Ireland, has so little to say in this respect about Wales. He refers, indeed, to the large and generous race of Falcons at Pembroke, and casually mentions a Kite being killed by a Weasel on which it had pounced. Also, in conversation during his travels, the absence of the Nightingale was commented upon, causing the Archbishop (who evidently did not like Wales) to observe that the bird was wiser than they were!

Birds of prey were scarce. A female Merlin rose, not ten yards away, from a low turfy cliff on one of the headlands; and Mr. Coward has seen two or three, and mentions a nesting site. He has also seen the Sparrow-Hawk once, but I did not. Kestrels are to be seen along the coast, as well as inland. At least one pair of Peregrines (called simply "Falcon") breed on the cliffs. Their eggs escape on account of the difficulty of discovering their whereabouts, but directly the whitish downy young are hatched they are usually detected, at least so an old cliff-climber told me. A Falcon comes to one of the islands occasionally to fetch a Puffin. Cormorants are not uncommon about the harbour and most of the rocky parts of the coast. They breed on St.