Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/194

 the extreme north"* of the latter country. Nowhere are there districts apparently better suited to this very handsome and inter- esting bird than in Ireland. Its absence as a summer visitor to our isle I have always regretted, when meeting with it in localities of various character in England; as about the Great Park at Windsor; the trim and old fashioned grounds at Hampton Court; the rich and wooded districts of Norfolk; the picturesque Matlock, in Derbyshire; and amid the stern grandeur of the scenery about Langdale Pikes, in Westmoreland. My information on the species as Irish, simply is, that a specimen was shot many years ago in the autumn, in the neighbourhood of Belfast, and when recent was obtained by Dr. J. D. Marshall; it proved to be P. ruticilla, when compared with English specimens in his collection: it has unfortunately been destroyed by moths. The same gentleman pro- cured a fresh specimen which was killed near Dublin, in Decem- ber, 1828. In the collection of T. W. Warren, Esq., of that city, I have seen one of these birds which was shot about the year 1830, near Kingstown. I have heard of another being killed near Dublin, and one at Tanderagee, in the county of Armagh. That all these birds were redstarts of some species, there can be no doubt, but whether or not P. ruticilla is uncertain. This species came under. my notice in Switzerland ; and when proceeding from Malta to the Morea, in 1841, one of them mi- grating from the south on the 25th of April, alighted on H.M.S. Beacon and was captured : the nearest land was Calabria, distant about 60 miles. Dr. J.L. Drummond informs me, that when H.M.S. Eenown (74), of winch he was assistant-surgeon, was lying off Gibraltar in spring, redstarts on migration flew on board, some of which were taken.

Macgillivray, vol. ii. p. 308. Mr. St. John, too, mentions it as a regular sum- mer visitant to Morayshire. "Wild Sports, &c." p. 139.