Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/37

Rh or nearly all, Herring-Gulls' eggs. Pennant, who visited the island on one of his Tours (about the year 1774–75), said it was "well cultivated and productive of everything which the mainland affords"; but he does not mention the birds at all, though his visit was evidently made in the summer; and he would surely have done so had there been any remarkable gathering of them. He mentions the Puffins at St. Tudwal's. There are no Puffins on Bardsey now, and, although it is distinctly stated in Book III. of the 'Ornithology' that the Puffins bred yearly in Bardsey in great numbers, I think this is a little doubtful. The author, or his editor, may have seen the Puffins belonging to Ynys Gwylan, which are scattered over the sea near Bardsey in the summer, and concluded that they bred on the latter island. The low part of the island is, indeed, suitable for Puffins, but the greater part of it has long been under cultivation. In 1798 Bardsey had seventy inhabitants, engaged in fishing and agriculture. In more remote days it was apparently even more thickly populated, and it was visited by a great many pilgrims. It was called by the Welsh poets the Sanctuary of Saints, and the Isle of Refuge. The reputed sanctity of the island induced the religious to resort to it from many very distant parts of the kingdom. The monastery (of which the ruins remain) is said to have been founded in the eighth century, but there is evidence that there was a religious house in the island at a much more early date. The odour of sanctity clung to the place down to Pennant's time. When the foundations of one of the new farms was laid, old gold coins, "each worth two guineas," were found; and it is said that one could not dig deeply in one part without finding them. This means pilgrims, and a well-found monastery; for, though many would come empty, the full paid for all. The coming and going of so many people must have made Bardsey anything but a "lonely resort of sea-fowl," and the demands upon the eggs of those that bred there must have been large. This state of things can hardly have co-existed with a large Puffin-warren on the lower part of Bardsey, where the farms lie. The mountain could never have accommodated them, I should think. The soil is shallow, and there are not sufficient holes and crevices under and in the rocks to house a large Puffin population. Willughby, and his editor Ray, gathered a good deal from hearsay. They relate that