Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/75

 county of Wicklow. My informant knew the. species of birds so well, that the individual in question must doubtless have been either the Falco subbuteo or F. rufipes; probably the latter, as a flight of them appeared in England that year.

Very few specimens of F. rufipes, — a native chiefly of the more eastern half of temperate Europe, — have been taken in England, and the first on record, was procured in 1830. Their second ap- pearance in that country was in 1832, in which year the first mentioned specimen was obtained in Ireland. The species has not been met with in Scotland.

breeds about Claggan, in the county of Antrim; and its nest, as well as that of the marsh and hen harrier, has been found on the ground, among the heath, by the gamekeeper in va- rious years. On the Mounterlowney and other mountains of Londonderry and Tyrone, some of my sporting friends have met with their nests, and young birds have been brought thence to Bel- fast, to W. Sinclaire, Esq., who in due time trained them to the pursuit of larks and snipes. In Donegal, the merlin is occasion- ally met with in summer, but more commonly in winter, on and after the first week of October.* The intelligent gamekeeper at Tollymore Park (Down), states that this species breeds regularly in the mountains of Mourne, where, in the summer of 1836 (when the information was supplied), he saw four of their nests. The young have frequently been brought from the neighbourhood of Clonmel (Tipperary), to Mr. E. Davis, jun., of that town; as they have likewise been from the vicinity of Youghal (Cork) to Mr. R. Ball. A nest "in the Commeragh mountains (Waterford) was merely a slight depression in the peaty soil, arched over with heather, and situated on the edge of an enormous detached rock, near the foot of the mountain."t The species is common in

Mr. J.V. Stewart.

Mr. J. Poole.

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