iQi?- Notes. 53 



NOTES. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Frojafs Spawning in Severe Weather. 



I must supplement the note I wrote last winter (vol. xx\-. p. j^i) on 

 " Frogs spawning in January," by mentioning that during the present 

 winter I saw no frog-spawn until February i-^th. On that day, examining 

 three separate spawning pools — two of them half a mile apart— I found 

 masses of the jelly-like substance in them all. The date is ten days later 

 than the latest recorded in my previous note ; but as the country on Feb. 

 14th was still under a mantle of snow which had lain for a full calendar 

 month the difterence is not greater than might have been expected. The 

 present winter has been the severest experienced here for 36 years, and 

 the snowfall of January 2Gth (which fell on ground already twelve days 

 under snow) was the heaviest since that of January 17th, 1881. With 

 the exception of one week — December 28th to January 3rd, inclusive 

 (during which week I may add that Pipistrelles were flying numerously 

 every night) — we have had uninterrupted cold weather since December 

 loth, and it was only in the immediate neighbourhood of springs, even 

 in the second week of February, that the Frogs cotdd spawn, the pools 

 elsewhere being still under ice. It shows how inveterate is their habit 

 of early spawning that they began when they did. 



C. B. Moffat. 



Bittern in Co. Tyrone. 



My friend, Mr. W. C. Wright, of Belfast, published in British Birds 

 for January last that a Bittern {Botaiivus stellaris) shot near Coalisland, 

 Co. Tyrone, on December 2nd, 1916, proved to be a female, with the 

 feathers of the head and neck in a state of moult. The ovaries 

 were in a diseased state and the stomach contained a perch nine inches 

 long. I think the above of great interest to Irish ornithologists. 



W\ H. Workman. 

 Belfast. 



Jays in County Dublin. 



Within the last few months a considerable number of Jays, about 

 30 birds, have appeared in the southern part of the county about Brittas, 

 and are still located there. I am not aware that these birds have ever been 

 observed in the locality before. 



G. C. May. 



Dubhn. 



