BIRDS OBSERVED ON THE CALF OF MAN.
By F.S. Graves and P. Ralfe.
The following notes were made during a four days' stay on the Calf of Man (May 22nd-25th, 1901). This islet (cf. Zool. 1894, p. 161) is separated from the Isle of Man by a strait 500 yards wide, and is 616 acres in extent, rising at its western side to 421 ft. in height. The whole circuit is rocky, but the highest cliffs are on the west, which is wholly precipitous. The north-east point, Kione Rouayr, has also good cliffs; the southern part consists of three promontories, comparatively low, but with steep sides, and nearly flat tops. Off the easternmost of these is the Burrow, a fine detached mass of rock pierced by a cavern; and on the west, underneath the two lighthouses (now disused for their original purpose), a double pyramid, called the Stack, separated by a narrow passage whose walls are sheer precipices. From the southern coast, towards the one farmhouse, which stands well inland, extends a little ravine called "the Glen," which has a tiny stream, and is full of profuse and beautiful vegetation. Here were noticed most of the small migrants mentioned below. There is some cultivated ground, mostly near the farmhouse, behind which are also a few trees: but the greater part of the islet is covered with heather, bracken (dead at the time of our visit), and coarse grass. There was in many places an abundance of beautiful flowering hyacinths, and in others primroses richly bloomed, or the ground was covered with sheets of ground-ivy, filling the air with scent. Damp places along the cliffs were white with masses of the flowers of Cochlearia.
While on former occasions our knowledge of the Calf had been entirely obtained from the sea, we were now for the first three days confined to the land; but on the fourth rowed completely round the islet.
