Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/84

58 appeared at a distance to be a snow-white bird rising out of a reedy marsh near the bank of the river. It flew with a slow and measured flight, passing so near as to enable me to see the pale buff of its back, though its wings were snowy white. I at once knew it must be a stranger. It pitched on a low tree overhanging the water, but having no gun with me I knew it was useless following it, though on my return I saw it standing on one leg on a sandy strand. On the 10th I lost no time in crossing the lakes and speeding down the Lanne, hardly expecting, however, again to see the rare stranger; but fortune favoured me, and on the same strand where I had last seen him standing I again found him. He allowed the boat to glide past within a few yards of him. I landed and walked up to him, but so careless was he of my approach that I had to allow him a few yards' law to avoid blowing him to pieces. I hurried into the stream and captured my prize, to find him a beautiful specimen of the Squacco Heron (Ardea comata). A boy herding cattle in the neighbourhood told me he had noticed the bird for some time past. I sent it for preservation to Mr. Thomas Cooke, of Museum Street, London, by whom it was beautifully mounted, and in whose shop it was seen and admired by many ornithologists. It is for the present deposited in the Ornithological Gallery of the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society.— (99, Lower Mount Street, Dublin).

[The Squacco Heron seems to be a rare bird in Ireland. A specimen was shot many years ago near Youghal, as recorded by Thompson (Nat. Hist. Ireland, Birds, vol. ii. p. 158), and another, also procured in the neighbourhood of Youghal, is in the Museum of the Royal Dublin Society. So far as we are aware, the subject of the present notice makes the third now recorded to have been met with in the Sister Isle. Seeing that the true home of this species is South-Western Asia, Egypt and Nubia, it is rather singular that the only specimens met with in Ireland should all have been found in the South-west of the island.—]

—No small interest attaches to the appearance of this bird in Ireland, as recorded at p. 24. Previous to its sporadic occurrence in the year 1859 it was unknown as a European bird; the remarkable irruption of more than 700 specimens in 1863, so ably chronicled by Professor Newton ('Ibis,' 1864, pp.185–222), occurred over a vast area, but has never since been repeated. Now that it has at last reappeared so far west as Kildare, it is extremely probable that this curious Asiatic species has been met with in other places, and it behoves every naturalist to record every authentic instance of its occurrence. The uncertainty which surrounds every question of migration can only be dispelled by diligent colligation of facts.—

—In 'The Zoologist' for November (2nd ser. 5164) I observe Mr. E.P.P. Butterfield laments the wholesale slaughter of Magpies, and their extinction in so many districts. I have great pleasure