Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/166

142 1893, p. 395), for I could not find the bird even in Merionethshire (where the Blackcap and Garden-Warbler were fairly common); and a good resident observer told me that it was not found there. Ray's Wagtail, too, is almost unknown in parts, at all events, of Merionethshire. I visited Carn Fadryn again in a vain search for the Twite. But so furious a gale had arisen by the time I reached the mountain, that I had great difficulty in keeping on my legs when at the top; so I do not think I proved anything either way. But the Twite seems very local in North Wales. I did not meet with it in the mountains between Dolgelly and the coast, which I walked over. The only small bird I added to my list of Lleyn birds is the Reed-Warbler. One of these birds was singing, every time I visited the spot, in some tall reeds of the previous year's growth in the marsh at Abersoch. Only once (on the one calm evening I enjoyed) did he show himself. Being cut off from the spot he constantly haunted by a broad deep drain, I could only make out a river Warbler, plain brown above and paler beneath. But the leisurely song was quite characteristic, and I think unmistakable. The bird's habits, too, contrasted strongly with those of the restless Sedge-Warblers around. For even on a morning when the reeds were rudely wind-shaken, and the Reed-Warbler sang, concealed from view, from one and the same place for half an hour, the Sedge-Warblers were always on the move, showing themselves continually, and every now and then, as is their wont, dancing up into the air to sing on the wing.

The only other bird I added to my list is the Common Sandpiper. One was running on the shore, left bare by the tide, on the east side of Pen Cilan on the 18th; and before breakfast the next morning there were several at the mouth of the Afon Soch and a little way up the stream. They were very lively. One was singing (the bright spring notes and trills really amount to a song) very gaily, and even mounting up into the air to sing. I watched a pair of Nightjars (birds which I had not previously met with myself in Lleyn) one evening among the big sand-hills at Abersoch, uttering their "gwik," clapping their wings, and occasionally "turring." Another bird new to me there was the Common Tern, one of which was fishing in Abersoch Bay on the 23rd. This year I saw three pairs of Lesser Terns in