An OrnUJioIogical Exploration. 14^ • 



On June 3rd, we drove from Glenties by Doochery Bridge 

 to Dungloe, through one of the wildest, most mountainous 

 districts I have ever seen (without ascending to any great 

 altitude). Bird life was exceedingly scarce, an occasional 

 Sandpiper by a stream, or Ring Ouzel perched on a rock, but 

 as we approached Dungloe we passed some small lakes con- 

 taining islands, covered with bushes or low trees, in which 

 Herons were nesting conspicuously, for want of better trees. 

 We saw a remarkable instance of this on an island in Lough 

 Aleck More, where an ancestral nest of Heron measured 4 feet 

 9 inches across, having evidently been added to from year to 

 year until it was as large as the Golden Eagle's nest we had 

 visited. It stood on the bare skeleton of what had been a low 

 tree not more than six or eight feet above the ground. On 

 other islands and rocks in this lake, and Lough Meela, on the 

 other side of Dungloe, Common Terns, Black-headed Gulls, 

 and a fevr pairs of the Common Gull were breeding. 



Next da}^ on Lough Meela we observed two Sheldrakes 

 and a Lesser Black-backed Gull. Swifts were numerous on 

 the lake and about Dungloe as well as at Glenties, being found 

 in the West of Ireland, as elsewhere, wherever there are build- 

 ings of sufiicient size for them to nest in. 



We then visited the small mountain lake which is the 

 breeding place of the Red-throated Diver. It was the most 

 elevated and perhaps the most lonely of a number of small 

 lakes some miles from Dungloe and from the sea. We saw 

 the pair of Divers, whose dark plumage assimilated to the 

 leaden hue of the waves of this lake. It partially overflowed 

 on one side, and its edges were flat and so wet that we sank , 

 to the ankle at almost every step. In places these margins 

 were mats of herbage, chiefly buck-bean, which yielded under 

 one. On such a margin we were shown the nesting-hollow, 

 scraped out with a peaty bottom on the (t(\%^ of the water, a 

 little vegetation fringing and partly concealing it. We saw 

 the old nesting-site of last year, which was similar. We were 

 told that the male usually remained on the lake while the 

 female was hatching, but that they sometimes go to the sea 

 to fish, and return flying to the lake late in the evening with a. 

 loud laughing cry, especially before rain.*' Both birds kept 

 Jtogether, and. always at the side of the lake furthest from us. 

 We were told that the Diver was. about to lay, but the fact i«. 



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