Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/353

327 two occasions I think I saw birds in the first year's plumage. On the 4th December, 1851, I shot an immature bird at Bartragh. On the 9th December, 1854, I saw either an Iceland or a Glaucous Gull, but I was too far off to be able to distinguish between the species, although I was able to see quite plainly the white wings which infallibly distinguish the northern gulls. On the 7th May, 1855, a bird in splendid adult plumage flew close by the window where I was sitting at the time, and I had a first-rate view of it. On the 26th January, 1862, I caught on a baited fishhook a fine young bird that had frequented my ploughed fields for nearly a month, feeding on the worms turned up by the plough. It seemed so tame that I thought it a pity to shoot it, so I attempted to catch it alive for the Zoological Gardens, but it had completely swallowed the hook, and was too much injured by it to live. So, having killed it, I presented it to the Dublin Natural History Society's collection. On the 22nd December of the same year I saw one, on the Enniscrone sands, so very dark in colour as to be evidently a young bird of the year. In 1866, on the 6th January, I shot another young bird in one of my fields, and on the 19th February I saw one at Enniscrone. In 1873, on the 26th January, as I was talking to a friend near Dooneen House, a young bird flew close past us and alighted on the high road about thirty yards off; after looking about for awhile it flew along the road, as if searching for food, for about two hundred yards, and then passed over the adjoining fields. The last time I had the pleasure of seeing one of these northern visitors was on the 28th January of the present year. It was resting amongst a flock of Common and Black-headed Gulls in one of my pasture fields.

Eider Duck, Anas mollissima.—An extremely rare visitant. In March, 1870, I observed a pair of immature males near Bartragh, one of which remained about the river and estuary all through the summer and autumn. I shot it near Killanly on the 6th October following. Of this bird I have already given a full account in 'The Zoologist' for February of the present year (p. 50). In December, 1870, my friend Captain Dover obtained a beautiful adult male near Bartragh. Both specimens are now in the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society.

Black Scoter, Oidemia nigra.—Very rare. I have only once met with it, in the winter of 1857, when a pair frequented the channel near Bartragh for some weeks.