Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 287 



mage, but still retained some fragments of down about the head. 

 On this occasion I could not but think how very different was the 

 scene and climate from that in which I first became initiated in rock- 

 dove shooting, by thus visiting marine caves for the purpose. This 

 was in the snow-white range of caverned cliffs extending for some 

 distance westward of Dunluce Castle, near the Giant's Causeway. 

 The rock-dove was equally common in both localities. 



The Turtle-Dove — Columba Turtur, Linn. — is an occa- 

 sional visitant to Ireland, and has been obtained in the coun- 

 ties ranging farthest to the south-west and north-west. It 

 has appeared in spring, summer and autumn, and probably 

 visited the island in some instances to increase its species, 

 although no instance of its breeding here is known to me*. 

 In four or five successive years it has occurred. 



Mr. Templeton records the turtle-dove as " seen at Cranmore 

 and Shanes-Castle ;" the former his own residence near Belfast, the 

 latter that of Earl O'Neil, situated on the borders of Lough Neagh. 

 About the year 1820, one of these birds was seen by a friend at 

 Fisherwick Lodge ; which, with the two localities just named, is in 

 the county of Antrim. The collection of J. V. Stewart, Esq. of 

 Rockhill, Letterkenny, contains a specimen shot in the north-west 

 of the county of Donegal. About Youghal, the species has two or 

 three times been met with by R. Ball, Esq. I have been informed 

 by Dr. Harvey of Cork, that " Mr. Fennell of Ballibrado, near Cahir, 

 county of Tipperary, shot a turtle-dove there in the spring of 1830, 

 when several of them were seen during a few weeks about his place; 

 in the following year, likewise, he saw three or four of these birds 

 in the same locality." Jn March 1834, a turtle-dove shown me by 

 Mr. Glennon, bird-preserver, Dublin, was said to have been shot at 

 Carton, the seat of the Duke of Leinster ; and at the same time it 

 was mentioned that the species had for two or three summers visited 

 Simpson's nursery-grounds, near the metropolis. By the late T. F. 

 Neligan, Esq. of Tralee, one of these birds was obtained near that 

 town on September 20, 1834 ; its crop was filled with wheat. To 

 T. W. Warren, Esq. of Dublin, I am indebted for notes to the effect, 

 that in the year 1834 he saw a recent example of this species, which 

 was shot in the county of Wexford ; that two specimens in his col- 

 lection were shot near Malahide, county of Dublin, in the summers 

 of 1835 and 1836 — two or three years before this time, he more 

 than once met with a bird of this species feeding in a field of vetches, 

 in the locality whence the specimens were procured, but it was too 

 wary to admit of his approach within gun-shot. H. H. Dombrain, 

 Esq. states, that one was shot in the summer of 1836, in Lord 

 Roden's demesne, Dundalk. On the 10th of July 1837, I saw a 



* Since the above was written, I have been credibly informed that a pair 

 of turtle-doves bred in a plantation near Downpatrick in the summer of 

 1842. They remained to a late period in the locality, one of them having 

 been killed on the 12th of November. Dr. Burkitt of Waterford mentions 

 two specimens obtained near that town — in 1834 and 183G. 



