no The Irish Naturalist. October, 



Little Tern nesting at Magilligan Point. 



At the beginning of August, 1923, I ^vas staying at Magilligan Point, 

 Co. Derry, which is the extremity of the eastern shore of Lough Foyle. 

 While there I noticed a flock of Little Terns [Sterna niinuta L.) numbering 

 about two dozen, and felt sure that they had bred there. Accordingly 

 I visited the site again on June 14 of this year, when my expectations 

 were fulfilled by the discovery of three nests containing eggs, together 

 with a number of empty ones ; the colony numbering about a dozen 

 breeding pairs. The nests were fairly typical — merely depressions in the 

 sand, very close to high-water mark — -much deeper than those made 

 by the Common Tern, not lined in any way, and each containing two 

 eggs of grey stone colour, blotched and spotted with black or very dark 

 brown. This is the first record of a breeding place in Co. Derry. 



J. R. H. Greeves. 



Altona, Belfast. 



Silene noctiflora in Co. Dublin. 



1 am glad to report the occurrence of a little colony of this species, 

 which has been kindly identified for me by Miss Knowles, on some waste 

 ground at Inchicore, where I noticed a few plants in flower a little after 

 9 o'clock (summer timel on the evening of July i8th. Owing to its late- 

 flowering habit, its discovery was more or less a matter of accident in 

 these days of legally postponed twihght ; but on subsequent visits I saw 

 about twenty plants, and found that while they often begin to open an 

 hour before sunset the flowers are seldom at their best till some thirty 

 minutes later. The ground occupied by the colony was part of a weedy 

 waste in which grew Thlaspi arvense, Sisymbrium Irio, Melilotiis officinalis, 

 Senecio squalidus, Matricaria discoidea, and Ballota nigra, with a single 

 plant of the Hare's-ear or Thorough-wax [Bupleurmn rotiindifoliiim), 

 which does not seem to have been yet recorded as of casual occurrence in 

 Ireland. Among such surroundings no one, of course, can doubt the recent 

 and " assisted " origin of this settlement of the Night-flowering Catchfly ; 

 still it will be of interest to notice how long the little annual may retain 

 possession of the ground. It probably depends for its fertilization on 

 visits from moths. 



C. B. Moffat. 



Dublin. 



Bee Orchis in Co. Down. 



It may be of interest to northern botanists to know that the Bee Orchis 

 {OpJirys -apifera) is to be found in this district together with Orchis pyra- 

 midalis. The former is growing in the sandhills at Benderg Bay, and also 

 in a meadow on the top of Killard Banks ; the latter in the same meadow 

 and in several other places near the shore. The only other record of the 

 Bee Orchis from the north-east counties of which I am aware is one from 

 Magheramorne, noted in the Irish Naturalist last year, 



Killard, Strangford, Co. Down. E. L. Seaver. 



