Road, there is little or no hedgerow timber, the fields here being divided by low banks with furze growing on the top of them.  Furze brakes also are still numerous, the whole of the flat land on the top of the cliffs and the steep valleys and slopes down to the sea on the south and east side of the Island, from Fermain Bay to Pleimont, being almost uninterrupted wild land covered with heather, furze, and bracken; besides this wild furze land, there are several thick furze brakes inland in different parts of the Island.  All these places seem to me to have remained almost without change for years.  The furze, however, never grows very high, as it is cut every few years for fuel; in consequence of this, however, it is more beautiful in blooming in the spring than if it had been allowed several years’ growth, covering the whole face of the ground above the cliffs like a brilliant yellow carpet; but being kept so short, it is not perhaps so convenient for nesting purposes as if it was allowed a longer growth.

The Guernsey Bird Act, which applies to all the Islands in the Bailiwick, and has been in force for some few years, seems to me to have had little effect on the numbers of the sea-birds of the district, though it includes the eggs as well as the birds, except perhaps to increase the number of Herring Gulls and Shags (which were always sufficiently numerous) in their old breeding-stations, and perhaps to have added a few new breeding-stations.  These two birds scarcely needed the protection afforded by the Act, as their nests are placed amongst very inaccessible rocks where very few nests can be reached without the aid of a rope, and consequently but little damage was done beyond a few young birds being shot soon after they had left the nest while they were flappers, and the numbers were fully kept up; other birds, however, included in the Act, and not breeding in quite such inaccessible places, seem to gain but little advantage from it, as nests of the Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Terns, Oystercatchers and Puffins are ruthlessly robbed in a way that bids fair before long to exterminate all four species as breeding birds; perhaps, also, the increase in the number of Herring Gulls does something to diminish the numbers of other breeding species, especially the Lesser Black-backs, as Herring Gulls are great robbers both of eggs and young birds.  The Act itself, after reciting that “le nombre des oiseaux de mer sur les cotes des Isles de cet Bailliage a considerablement diminue depuis plusieurs annees; que les dits oiseaux sont utiles aux pecheurs, en ce qu’ils indiquent les parages ou les poissons se trouvent; que les dits oiseaux sont utiles aux marins en ce qu’ils annoncent pendant la duree des brouillards la proximite des rochers,” goes on to enact as follows:—­“Il est defendu de prendre, enlever ou detruire les ceufs des oiseaux de mer dans toute I’entendue de la jurisdiction de cette isle, sur la peine d’une amende qui ne sera pas moindre de sept livres tournois et n’excedera