Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/479

Rh O.V. Aplin, to whom we are indebted for calling our attention to Pennant's description, has not so far found it nesting on the coast of Lleyn.

The Kittiwakes were restricted to a short stretch of low precipitous cliffs on the northern side, where they had availed themselves of the slightest projections on which to place their apparently inadequate nests. In addition to the small colony on the island, a few pairs were nesting at one spot on the adjacent mainland. Though there were many Cormorants standing with outspread wings on the rocks, none appear to nest now on Puffin; nor did we see Shags here, or, indeed, in any other part of the district. Except on the seaward side, the cliffs are hardly steep enough for Guillemots or Razorbills, but a fair number of each were breeding in proximity to the Kittiwakes.

The thrift-covered turf slope above the cliffs on the western side is honeycombed with the burrows of Puffins, but the colony cannot compare in size with others which we have visited on the coast of Wales. The birds were brooding in their holes, and at every few steps, as we crossed the turf, one would bustle out, fly down the slope, just clear of the ground, and drop diagonally to the water. The Puffin appears to have formerly resorted to the island in much greater numbers, for Bingley ('A Tour through North Wales,' 1800) says:—"I had a sight of upwards of Fifty Acres of Land literally covered with Puffins, and my Calculation is much within Compass, when I declare that the Numbers here, must have been more than Fifty Thousand."

It is asserted that the Puffins were at one time almost, if not entirely, driven away by the Rats, which had taken refuge on the island from the wreck of a Prussian vessel in 1816 or 1817. Bell ('British Quadrupeds,' 2nd edit. p. 313), referring to this occurrence, says that not only were the Puffins evicted, but the vast numbers of Rabbits with which the island was stocked were destroyed by the Rats, which soon overran the place. The birds certainly do not now resort to the island in anything like the numbers mentioned by Bingley, and it is possible that they suffered from the increase of the Rats, but it is doubtful if they were ever entirely banished. The old sexton at Penmon assured us that, when he was a boy, his father used to visit the island in July for the purpose of collecting the nestling Puffins, of which