6 The Irish Natui-alist. 



like plant which is new to science, and which I propose to call 

 Pogotrichiun hiberniciun. J. Reinke of Kiel, to whom I sent 

 specimens, tells me he is now describing for the first time the 

 only other known species, P. filifornic, found at Heligoland. 

 The Irish plant shows unilocular and plurilocular sporangia, < 

 the Heligoland one plurilocular only. At Miltown Malbay I 

 was interested to find tufts oi Dictyoptci'is polypodioidcs, Lamx, 

 growing as an intertidal weed. I had previously gathered 

 this brown alga off the Mewstone in Plymouth Sound, in 12-15 

 fathoms. This intertidal habitat on the coast of Clare is a 

 marked illustration of the possibility of occurence of Spanish 

 and other southern weeds on the south and west coasts of 

 Ireland. 



Knough has been said to shew that there is waiting for 

 readers of the Irish Naturalist, a field of investigation sure 

 to 3'ield rich and interesting results. 



THE CROSSBII^L {LOXIA CURVIROSTRA, L.) 



IN IRELAND. 



BY R. T. USSHKR 



In studying the fauna of a country', one of the most interesting 

 things to note is the increase or decrease of certain species, 

 with the causes of these changes. The decrease of such birds 

 as the two Eagles, the Marsh Harrier, and the Quail, being 

 chiefl}' the work of man, is rapid and noticeable. The increase 

 of others, due rather to natural causes, is more gradual and 

 less perceptible. We have, however, in the Crossbill an in- 

 stance of a bird whose recent marked increase has been 

 obser\"ed in our four provinces, and has, within the last few 

 3^ears, removed it from the categorj' of an uncertain visitant to 

 that of a resident .species. 



Thompson can quote but three mentions of it (as a straggler) 

 in the last century. I have been informed by old residents in 

 Co. Waterford, that about the year 1798, great flocks of Cross- 

 bills visited this county in the autumn, and committed havoc 

 among the orchards, splitting open the apples, and eating the 

 pips only. This circumstance my father often described to me. 



Among the many instances of the Crossbill's occurrence 

 'from 1828 to 1846, given by Thompson, onl}' two presented 

 evidence which satisfied him that it had bred in the country. 

 In April, 1856, Mr. Smyth of Headborough shot and gave me 

 two of these birds, and in the following month he saw several 

 others about the same mountain plantation ; but it was not 

 until 1867 that nests were found, at Kilkea, Co. Kildare, when 

 the steward informed Mr. Blake Knox that he had seen Cross- 



