Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/198

176 to join it, but the latter beat it off, and every time it attempted to feed it was driven away, until at length it flew off about two hundred yards to where a dead dog was lying at high-water mark, and began to feed on it so greedily that it took no notice of my puut until I had come close within shot, when, as it was making off, I knocked it over. It proved to be a full-grown specimen of the Glaucous Gull in the first year's plumage, and although quite as large and as strong-looking as the Black-backed Gull, yet it had not the courage to fight for its share of the food.

The weather had been wet and stormy during the greater part of January, but on the 24th it became very cold, with a heavy gale from the N.N.W., accompaned by violent hail-storms. About three o'clock on that day I was in the farm-yard, standing near the cattle-houses, when I observed a little bird flitting about a manure-heap, but as there were several tits and finches moving about I did not take much notice of it at first. After a time, however, it came quite close to me, and I then saw that it was either a Willow Wren or Chiffchaff, but its feathers being much puffed out from the effects of the cold I was unable to decide which. It remained about the heap until dark, attracted by the insects found there, as well as by the warmth. On the following day the weather had become colder, with snow lying on the ground, and as I was in the yard about the same hour I again perceived the little bird about the manure-heap, but evidently much weaker and suffering more from the cold, and as I was then able to get a closer view of it than on the first day I came to the conclusion that it was a Chiffchaff, as it appeared darker underneath than the Willow Wren is, and the call-note sounded harsher. This is the earliest date at which I have seen the Chiffchaff in this locality. Some years ago, at Castle Warren, Co. Cork, I remember seeing and hearing a Chiffchaff as early as February 18th and March 2nd, and as late as the 22nd November.

Being anxious to ascertain whether any of our winter visitors remained after the departure of the main flocks to their northern haunts, I took my punt round the estuary on the 6th April, and reconnoitred the wide expanse of sand extending from Scurmore to Killala. I found that the Wigeon had all left, as also the Knots, but I fell in with a flock of fifteen or twenty Gray Plovers, none of which showed any sign of assuming the black breast peculiar to the summer plumage. The greater part of the Godwits must have