84 The Irish Nahualist April,. 191 3. 
The Carrion Crow at Lambay. 
With regard to Mr. G. C. May's note on the above subject {supva, p. 43) 
one would like to have some evidence of identification. How, for instance, 
did Mr. Mason distinguish the bird from a young rook ? Assertions of 
knowledge however vigorous are not very convincing in such reports 
without evidence of identification. No one can expect a record of a rare 
bird having been seen to be accepted, however good an ornithologist the 
observer may be, unless he gives proof of how he identified the bird. 
High Holborn, London. H. F. Witherby. 
Early Swallows at Ardmore. 
My father, Mr. R. J. Ussher, \\ishes me to say that on the 14th March 
my husband and I observed a Swallosv here, and about an hour after- 
wards one of my daughters came in saying that she had seen a Swallow 
in the yard of our house. I know the Sand Martin and did not mistake 
it for a Swallow. The bird I saw uas black above, and had the long 
pointed tail of a S\vallow. 
Ardmore, Co. Waterford. Isabel M. Odell, 
The supposed former Occurrence of the Wild Cat in Ireland. 
I think the last note dealing with the subject of the former presence 
in Ireland of the Wild Cat was one by Mr. Warren in the Irish Nahiralist 
of April, 191 1 (vol. XX., p. 80). Mr. Warren's criticism of the veracity 
of country people in that note is rather severe. He thinks the stories 
about the Wild Cat may all be put aside as being of like value as other 
mythical stories of fairies, banshees, etc. I doubt whether Mr. Warren's 
opinions are shared by many other naturalists. At any rate it is of 
importance to place on record stories about the former existence of the 
Wild Cat in Ireland. If we should at any future time receive information 
acceptable to Mr. Warren, that this creature once lived in this country, 
such stories will be of undoubted value to any one engaged in writing the 
history of the Wild Cat in Ireland. 
The object of my present note is to point out to the readers of the 
Irish Naturalist an interesting passage in a book written in the early 
part of the last century by W. H. Maxwell. In this book — " Wild Sports 
of the West" — to which my attention was directed by Miss Knowles, there 
are a good many valuable faunistic observations. In chapter xxxiii. 
the writer alludes to the capture of a Wild Cat in Mayo, stating that it 
was of a dirty gray colour, double the size of a house cat, and with 
teeth and claws more than proportionately larger. Besides this large 
and ferocious species, he says, the warrens upon the coast suffer much 
from the common cat becoming wild, and burrowing in the rabbit-holes. 
National Museum, Dublin. R. F. Scharff. 
