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WILD BIRD PROTECTION IN CO. DUBLIN. 



BY AI.EXANDER WILLIAMS, K.H.A. 



Much might be written concerning the good effects that have 

 resulted from recent legislation passed for the preservation of 

 our Irish birds. It is not so very many years since the 

 poulterers' shops in the City of Dublin often contained in the 

 last week of April numbers of Golden Plover in the handsome 

 black, white and yellow full summer plumage, together with 

 specimens of the fine White-fronted Goose, a sight that 

 often grieved humane bird lovers. The law which fixed the 

 end of the killing season nearly two months earlier has saved 

 the lives of a great many more of our beautiful shore birds 

 and put a stop at the same time to what was a crying evil, the 

 constant Sunday shooting that was carried on at Clontarf, 

 Dollymount, Sutton, Baldoyle and different parts of the bay of 

 Dublin. 



Owing to this protection one species, the Herring Gull, has 

 increased enormously in numbers, and has become remarkably 

 tame, especially along the course of the Liffe5^ Their great 

 depot is in the vicinity of the South Wall beyond the Pigeon 

 House Fort, where the Rathmines sewage is discharged at 

 ebbing tide into the Liffey ; here they gather in great flocks. 

 In the Custom House Docks they may be seen in hundreds 

 lined along the ridge tiles of the roofs of the warehouses, on 

 the gunwales of the boats, and the mooring buoys, and follow- 

 ing the course of the river up to the Phoenix Park. Frequently 

 they congregate on the roofs of the houses about Orniond- 

 quay, and a very favourite spot is the top of the Presbyterian 

 church, where they select the points of the stone pinnacles of 

 the building. They may often be noticed now frequenting 

 roofs of public buildings and private houses some distance 

 from the river, and also ploughed fields and meadows in the 

 suburbs, where they must be most useful to the farmer in 

 clearing the land of insect pests. 



The Green Plover, " Peewit " or " Lapwing " are rigidly 

 preserved on the Golf Links of Portmarnock, nesting there in 

 great numbers, and they are, I might say, absurdly tame for 

 birds which at other times are so very difficult of approach. 



