The crops are greatly devastated by caterpillars and grubs. The abundance of these pernicious insects is attributed to the great scarcity of sparrows and other small birds. Starlings are seldom seen; but never a swallow. Sea gulls are numerous, and amongst the sea birds the osprey or sea eagle is a conspicuous object. Neither the raven, rook, crow, nor jackdaw visits the islands; but there is a handsome bird which is very numerous, especially in the north island. The chough, which, in addition to plumage dark and glossy like that of the jackdaw, displays a beak and legs of bright scarlet. It is said that this bird was formerly to be seen in flocks on various parts of the English coasts, and that now it cannot be found in any part of the United Kingdom except in Aran. Plovers, gannets, pigeons, duck, teal, and divers breed abundantly on the rocky ledges. The cliffs are the resort of countless puffins (_Anas Leucopsis_); the popular belief being that they spring from the driftwood[1]. Their flesh supplies a rich lamp oil, and their feathers fetch a high price in the London markets. The capture of these birds is a dangerous occupation for the cragsmen, who descend from the cliffs by means of a rope to the haunts of the puffin, and having spent the night in the dangerous occupation, ensnaring and killing them as they sleep on the rocky ledges, they are hauled up in the morning, having realized ten or twelve shillings during the night. In the summer of 1816, two unfortunate fellows engaged in this frightful occupation missed their footing, and falling, were dashed to pieces on the rocks below. The solitary bittern, called in Irish the _Boonaun-Laynagh_, frequents the low-lying ground on the Galway side of the island, and hares and rabbits are very plentiful also. On the barren sheets of rocks the peasants (denominated lazy and idle, by lazy and idle writers and speakers) have with tireless toil walled in and made numberless gardens in which potatoes mealy and dry are grown. The meteorological aspirations of the Aran peasant are for rain, diametrically the opposite of what their brethren on the mainland desire. A dry summer gives to Aran a parched and burnt-up hue, when the cattle faint and die if not removed to the mainland. Tanks, such as they have in Ceylon, are sadly wanting in those islands, and the expense of their construction must be a trifling matter indeed. [Sidenote: ICE-CUT FURROWS.]