72 The Irish Naturalist. March, 



NOTES. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Vanessa io in the West. 



I see in the January number reference made to Vanessa io. I have seen 

 it on Slieve Anierin, in Co. L,eitrim, and also numbers of the caterpillars 

 in the crag land in Co Clare, one of which changed into the chrysalis on 

 12th July, 1900, and into the butterfly on 27th July, 1900. 



P. H. Grierson. 



Lehinch. Co. Clare. 



Clausilia bidentata with two mouths. 



In the Journal of Conchology for October, Mr. Hugh L. Orr records the 

 above curious case of shell-repairing in a specimen found by him on Cave 

 Hill, Belfast. He suspects that the injury was inflicted by Cole Tits or 

 Blue Tits. 



Tawny Owls in Co. Down. 



Towards the end of January I was informed by a gentleman who takes 

 some interest in ornithology that in June last year he procured from the 

 New Forest nine living Tawny Owls which he liberated in Co. Down. 

 This satisfactorily explains the appearance of the one I recorded in the 

 Irish Naturalist for January, but it is anything but satisfactory to think 

 that these nine birds were introduced six months before and no intima- 

 tion was sent to local ornithologists, local papers, or the Irish Naturalist. 

 Any interference with the natural fauna of a country should be always 

 recorded in the proper journals, so that other workers may not be 

 misled. I examined and dissected a second female Tawny Owl shot 

 near Holywood on December 31st, 1900, and a third was shot atSaintfield 

 on February 13. Therefore there are still six Tawny Owls at large in 

 the neighbourhood of Belfast. I wish also to place on record the fact 

 that the same gentleman liberated twelve Jays in Co. Down last June, 

 though I have not heard of any having been shot. They were likewise 



procured from the New Forest. 



Robert Patterson. 

 Belfast. 



[Mr. Patterson mildly censures the anonymous gentleman to whom he 

 refers for introducing these birds into Co. Down without informing 

 naturalists of what he had done. In our view this omission only 

 heightens the far worse offence of deliberately " falsifying the 

 geographical record." Any occurrence of these two species in the north 

 of Ireland henceforth will be suspect, on account of this utterly needless 

 interference with the native fauna of our island. Our views on this 

 question of introduction are well known to our readers, and we can only 

 repeat what we said several years ago in connection with a similar case — 

 the introducer is almost as great an enemy to science as the exter- 

 minator. — Eds.] 



