Thomas Alfred Coward

“ As a rule the sheld-duck likes a low sandy shore and nests freely in sand-dunes, but here the nests are fully 100 feet above water. When the eggs hatch the parents lead the young to the sea, and they must know their way well on Puffin, for there is only one portion of the island down which a downy infant could safely trot.
The peregrine has often bred on Puffin, but it does not always escape molestation; on several visits I have found the pair nesting on the Anglesey cliffs within sight, but not on the island itself. Crows occasionally nest, but are not encouraged, and one young bird. ”

“ On these islands the birds are tamer, standing round the holes and flying up and down, from and to the water, without much concern; here the eggs are but a few feet from the entrance of the burrows, and the birds, wheeling overhead, are comparatively fearless. At Puffin the birds soon leave the slopes; every few minutes one will dart from a hole and fly straight to the water, where with crowds of companions it swims at a safe distance; they are shy. Many of the eggs are ten or twelve feet down the burrows, quite out of arm's reach in most cases. ”

“ Oyster-catchers, one or two pairs, nest in the thrift, and sit, apparently indifferently, on some mound or other elevated position to watch the behaviour of any visitors; all the time they keep up a steady "pic-pic," probably a warning to their mates or young when they are hatched. Rock-pipits by their anxious peepings reveal the fact that they have nests in the cliffs, and their rather smaller relatives, meadow-pipits or titlarks, find plenty of cover for their brown eggs. ”

“ Unfortunately a certain class of holiday-maker refuses to respect property; a party will land with guns to shoot rabbits and sea-birds, even ruthlessly slaying the latter during the breeding season; the eggs of the fowl are robbed without regard for law or mercy. The keeper visits the island from time to time, but is not resident ”

“ Another gull, however, had different tastes, and had selected bleached rabbit-bones for an adornment.
The largest members of the fauna are a small party of very wild goats, the male being a magnificent animal with huge horns; how long they have been there I do not know, but they are never milked. for on the steep cliffs it would be difficult to catch them. Giraldus Cambrensis, writing more than 700 years ago, tells of another mammal. "There is a small island, almost adjoining Anglesey, which is inhabited by hermits, living by manual labour and serving God. ”

“ Perhaps biologists never quarrel! Perhaps the absence of human inhabitants accounts for the extinction of these murine checks to immorality; at any rate, we are still looking for the "species of small mice." ”

“ Tradition tells that even the Vikings came to the holy man for instruction, but it is far more likely that the warlike priests kept watch and guard at Penmon, and that such foreigners who were captured or wrecked upon the coast were instructed in hard labour for the benefit of the community. ”

“ It is remarkable that when, by the influence of human passions, any discord arises among theta, all their provisions are devoured and infested by a species of small mice, with which the island abounds ”