Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/114

 very rarely about Clonmel.* Major Walker of Belmont, near Wexford, mentions their presence in winter in numbers on the mountain of Forth, whence they leave the country about April. This gentleman remarks : — "I consider the short-eared owl and the yellow owl [S. flammea?] the most sharp-sighted and vigilant birds I meet, and nearly impossible to get a shot at after being once disturbed, perching as they do on some elevation, or in the centre of a field, so as to command a good view around. I men- tion this, as it is so different from the habits of the very large owls I have met with in the forests of North America, which would let our troops ride within a few yards of their perch, and unless struck at, never flew away." Another correspondent, writing from the same county, mentions Ins coming suddenly on three of these birds, resting together on the ground in the middle of a large bog, waiting as he supposed, "for an opportunity of devouring snipe." Specimens are occasionally obtained in the county of Waterford.f

In the Fauna of Cork, the species is noted as not rare ; and from what Dr. Harvey of Cork writes to me respecting its occurrence in that neighbourhood, it would seem to be about equally common as around Belfast. Mr. Neligan has remarked, that it arrives in Kerry with the woodcock, and departs thence at the same period ; also, that the haunts of the two species in the mountains are simi- lar. In the month of September or October, — about the time of arrival, — a friend of his once saw thirteen or fourteen in company; and from sportsmen shooting near Tralee, he was occasionally supplied with two or three of these birds in the course of a week. Mr. M'Calla, writing from Roundstone, Connemara, in October, 1840, stated that he had seen but one owl of any kind in that district, and from the distance at which it was, the species could not be ascertained. To the short-eared owl only would that locality seem to be suited, and to it, particularly well.

In the stomach of one specimen examined by me, were the legs of a dunlin (Tringa variabilis), and in another, the remains of mice. J

Davis.

f Burkitt.

The following quaint extract from Rutty's Natural History of the county of