142 The Irish Naturalist. December, 



List of Irish Birds. 



We have reason for believing that the National Museum will soon be 

 able to offer to the public a new List of Irish Birds, which has been 

 prepared and brought fully up to date by iNIr. A. R. Nichols. Such a 

 list will certainly be a real boon to students of nature. It may, no 

 doubt, be expected to follow in the main the lines of the previous lists 

 drawn up by A. G. More (1885 and 1890) and by R. J. Ussher (1908), 

 serving at once as a concise work of reference regarding the ornithology 

 of Ireland and as a ready guide to the collection of Irish birds in the 

 Museum. As much interesting matter has come to light during the 

 sixteen years that have elapsed since the publication of INIr. Ussher's 

 list, a new issue, revised in the thorough manner that may be expected 

 from so good an authority as Mr. Nichols, is plainly ca.lled for. 



The Beaked Whales. 



There are many references in the past volumes of this Journal to 

 Irish whales. A particularly troublesome group to identify are the 

 Whales belonging to the genus Mesoplodon. They are included among 

 the " Beaked Whales," have a wide distribution and most of them are 

 rarely met wdth. As the skulls and skeletons of these whales are 

 scattered in various museums of the world comparison between them 

 becomes a difficult task. In a reference to Sir Sidney Harmer's new 

 Irish Beaked Whale in the Nov. -Dec. Irish Naturalist of 191 9, allusion 

 was made to a further detailed study by the same author on the Beaked 

 W^hales. This has now been published in a paper on " Mesoplodon and 

 other Beaked Whales " (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1924, part ii, pp. 541- 

 587). Sir Sidney Harmer now gives us. a much better account of the 

 salient characters of the species of Mesoplodon. He particularly directs 

 attention to the form of the base of the rostrum and to the autorbital 

 region of the Beaked Whales. The only Beaked Whale which is at all 

 common in Irish waters is the Bottle-nosed W^hale [Hyperoodon rostratus). 

 Of the genus Mesoplodon one species has been known for a considerable 

 time as being occasionally met with on our coasts, viz., Af. bidens, A 

 whale described by the late Prof. Anderson as Mesoplodon hectori -vvas 

 first obtained on the Galw^ay coast and is now definitely ascertained to 

 be M. minis. Another species of Beaked Whale [Ziphius cavirostris) 

 has been met with on the Wexford coast as already commented on {Irish 

 Nat., vol. XXV., p. 68). 



Limax cinereo-niger at Howth. 



While collecting on a rocky heather-covered slope near Shielmartin. 

 Howth, last August, I took from under a stone a slug which Mr. A. W. 

 Stelfox identified as Limax cinereo-niger Wolf. var. punctata Less. This 

 is apparently a new locality for the species so far as the Dublin district is 

 concerned, as Mr. Stelfox know^s of no records except those from the 

 mountains and glens of South County Dublin and Wicklow. 



National Museum, Dublin. Eugene G. O'Mahony. 



