Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/21

 them breed in the islands of Strangford lake," p. 233. In another part of the volume it is observed:—"Four of these islands are called swan islands, from the number of swans that frequent them," p. 154. That these fine birds built there at so comparatively late a period may seem doubtful; but it should be borne in mind that Low, in his Fauna Orcadensis, written at the end of the last century, informs us that "a few pairs build in the holms of the loch of Stennes," in Orkney. Rutty, in his Natural History of the County of Dublin published in 1772, observes:—"There are two sorts [of "wild goose, Anser ferus"], the one a bird of passage, that comes about Michaelmas and goes off about March; but there is a larger kind which stays and breeds here, particularly in the Bog of Allen," vol. i. p. 333. Harris, in his History of Down, speaks of the "great harrow goose being found in a red bog in the Ardes near Kirkiston," but says nothing of its breeding there. An octogenarian friend has, however, informed me that a relative often told him that he had robbed the nests of wild geese in this very locality, Kirkiston flow;—red bog of Harris;—the period of his doing so was previous to the year 1775. There is little doubt that the true wild goose (A. ferus) was the bird alluded to, as it formerly bred plentifully in the fens of England, though for a considerable period they, as well as the bogs of Ireland, have been deserted by it.

The golden eagle is becoming annually more rare, and is now even "very scarce" in its former stronghold, the county of Kerry. The kite, remarked by Smith in his History of Cork (1749) to be so common as to "need no particular description," and to remain "all the year," has been known in the present century, only