"a certain Fisherman told us, that in the middle of Winter he once found a Puffin under water, torpid, among the Rocks not far from Bardsey Island, which being again cast into the Sea streightway sank to the bottom. Believe it that will." But Bardsey has always been a strange place, and is so still, as will presently appear from what a man told me about the Frogs. Twenty thousand saints, too, are buried here, albeit one writer sagely remarks: "It would be much more facile to find graves in Bardsey for so many saints, than saints for so many graves." There are no Kittiwakes on Bardsey, and only a few Guillemots and Razorbills.
A head-wind on our return journey necessitated our hugging the cliffs from Pen Cristin nearly to the northern extremity of the island, and I could see no high cliff sheer from the sea with ledges extensive enough to form a breeding station of the Alcidæ of any importance. There are ledges which would do for Cormorants, and hollows for Shags, but I saw no large cave. Starlings, too, breed in the rocks, and, higher up, Jackdaws and a pair of Peregrine Falcons. A large number of Herring-Gulls inhabit the shelving—and, to some extent, sloping—cliffs immediately above the sea; but, with the exception of the Shearwaters and a few other species, these are the only sea-fowl for which Bardsey is now remarkable.
There are, I was told, no "great snakes" on Bardsey; only "little small ones" (? Blindworms). The Vicar of Aberdaron, in 1798, stated that "none of the inhabitants ever saw in it Frog, Toad or snake of any kind." I inquired if there were any Frogs now. "No," said my informant; "and if any Frogs are brought to the island they die—ay, and if you take of the earth of Bardsey, and put it into where there are Frogs on the mainland, the Frogs all die." "That," said I, "is what you have been told." "That is what I have seen," he replied. "You have tried it yourself?" I asked. "Yes, I have done it myself," said he. "And the Frogs died?" "Die they did," said he.[1] After that I said no more; and I merely add now, with the author of the 'Ornithology,' "believe it that will." There are Rabbits about the low grounds, and some on the mountain, the latter having their habitations chiefly among the stony rocks. Those that I saw
- ↑ Cf. Giraldus, of the Irish soil.
