Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/475

Rh replacing the Swallows and House-Martins that fed by day, as, above the trees, the Noctules replaced the Swifts. At this pool, one day, we watched a Robin take insects repeatedly from the surface of the water. In its flight from bough to bough it checked its course, hovering for an instant as it seized its food; not taking its prey "in its stride," as a Swallow or Flycatcher does.

On June 3rd a pair of Creepers were feeding fully-fledged young (they left the nest on the following day) in a nest between the thick stem of an old ivy and the park-wall at Penmon. In nineteen minutes the parent birds made thirty visits, bringing green caterpillars and some black insects we could not identify from the neighbouring thorns.

Save for the trees near the Priory, and a few old gnarled thorns, the low limestone hills of the Penmon promontory are treeless; several hundred acres are enclosed within high stone walls. The turf is cropped by innumerable Rabbits, whose burrows honeycomb the ground, providing nesting-holes for many Wheatears, and a few pairs of Stock-Doves and Sheld-Ducks. In the bracken, which covers many acres, a fair number of Nightjars crouched during the day; and Lapwings, though common in the open country everywhere, were nowhere so abundant as here. There were several pairs of Meadow-Pipits near the Point, and along the cliffs from Penmon to Redwharf Bay; but the bird is not generally distributed. The Sky-Lark, on the other hand, was common everywhere.

At the lowest part of the park is a shallow pool, which, sheltered by a high wall from the road that skirts the beach, affords a secluded retreat for Curlews and Ringed Plovers at high water. Indeed, one or two pairs of the latter bird had forsaken the adjacent shingle, and were nesting on the rush-grown turf by the pool-side. A male Sheld-Duck constantly frequented the water, where at times he was joined by his mate, who was brooding in a Rabbit-burrow on the limestone bank two hundred feet above, and a quarter of a mile inland. On the evening of June 5th, as we were walking across the high land in the Deer Park, we saw a small bird swimming on this pool. When we approached nearer we found that it was a Red-necked Phalarope, and though, in the pouring rain and fading light, it was impossible to dis-