56 The Irish Naturalist. April, 1919. 



The Two-barred Crossbill. 



Among the original notes of William Thompson's first volume of the 

 " Natural History of Ireland " I recently came across a beautifully hand- 

 coloured drawing of the Two-barred Crossbill, Loxia bifasciata (C. L. 

 Brehm), the work of the late Robert Templeton in 1802. This drawing 

 is mentioned by Thompson in his " N. H. of I.," vol. i., p. 283, as being 

 that of a bird from " Grenville, near Belfast, January nth, 1802." 

 GrenviUe is a locality I have never been able to fix, but a note in 

 Thompson's own writing, accompanying the drawing, gives the locality 

 as Greenville which is in the Bloomfield district of Belfast, and in County 

 Down. This therefore definitely determines the locality of the first 

 recorded example of this bird in the British Isles. Furthermore in the 

 same note Thompson says, " Having seen Mr. T's. [Templeton's] drawing 

 of this bird I may add that it compares with the female as described by 

 Bonaparte." Thus for the first time (as far as I can ascertain) is the sex 

 given. The late Mr. Howard Saunders in his " Manual of British Birds," 

 p. 203, gives May nth, 1802, as the date of the bird's occurrence. This 

 is, of course, incorrect, as proved by Thompson's own statement, and 

 should read January nth. I rather fancy Saunders mixed up his species 

 with that of the Parrot Crossbill {Loxia pytiopsittacits) obtained in May, 

 1802, and mentioned by Thompson in vol. i., p. 282. There seems to 

 have been a coloured drawing of this bird as well, but I have not been 

 able to trace it ; there is not the slightest doubt that the drawing I have 

 seen refers to L. bifasciata and not to the latter. The drawing with 

 Thompson's original notes to his first volume belong to the collections 

 of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society and are now 

 in this museum. 



J. A, Sidney Stendall. 

 Municipal Museum, Belfast. 



The manuscript copy of the " Natural History of Ireland," which 

 is preserved in the National Library, and which in point of time succeeded 

 the original notes to which Mr. Stendall refers, agrees with the latter 

 in giving Greenville, not Grenville as the locality where the bird in 

 question was obtained ; so Grenville appears to have been a printer's 

 error. As regards the sex of the specimen, this was mentioned in the 

 first published record of its occurrence, in the " Extracts from the Minute- 

 book," Trans. Linnean Society, vol. vii. (1804), p. 309. I quote the 

 entry : — " Dec 20, 1803. Mr. Templeton, A.L.S., of Orange-Grove 

 near Belfast, in a letter to Mr. Dawson Turner, F.L.S., mentions that the 

 White- winged Crossbill, Loxia falcirostia of Latham, was shot within 

 two miles of Belfast, in the month of January, 1802. It was a female, 

 and perfectly resembled the figure in Dixon's " Voyage lo the Ncrth- 

 west Coast of America." 



R. Lloyd Praeger. 

 National Library, Dublin. 



