20 'J- he Irish Naturalist. January, 19 13. 
Wexford, to a company of Frenchmen, -who immediately fenced it in and, 
having freely irrigated it from an adjoining stream, proceeded to sow it 
down under a leech crop. The seed, if we may so express it, was contained 
in sacks, each holding 15,000 leeches, which were scattered from the hand 
just as corn is sown." 
It would be very interesting to know the subsequent history of this 
leech " farm." Dr. Scharff states that his efforts to obtain an Irish speci- 
men of the Medicinal Leech have been fruitless. I his locality might prove 
fruitful if carefully searched. If the species is found there, a careful record 
should be made of the colour pattern for comparison with the plates in 
Ebrard's " Sangsues Medicinales " (1857), where local varieties are care- 
fully described, and thus a clue to their probable origin be obtained. 
Of course, this is " counting the chickens before they are hatched," but 
until last year it was thought that the Medicinal Leech was extinct in 
England. My friend, Mr. Wm. N. Blair, has recently obtained several 
specimens from the New Forest. 
H, Whitehead. 
Toynbee Hall, London, E. 
Common Eider Duck in Co. Wexford. 
An immature male Conmion Eider Duck [Somateria molHssima), shot 
on the south end of the South Slob, Wexford Harbour, on the 12th 
November, 19 12, has been sent to the Dublhi Museum by Colonel J. J. 
Perceval. 
This Duck is a rare straggler to Ireland, chiefly to the northern coast, 
and Mr. Ussher, in Birds of Ireland, only mentions two specimens from 
Co. Wexford, one obtained previously to 1834 and the other in 1876. 
The first nesting of the Common Eider in Ireland (Co. Donegal) has 
recently been announced in British Birds. 
A. R. Nichols. 
National Museum, Dubhn. 
Siberian Skylark in Co. Cork. 
Dr. Hartert, of Tring, has most kindly examined for me some Skylarks 
obtained from Irish light -stations, and has detected amongst them a 
specimen of Alauda arvensis cincrea, killed striking at the Old Head of 
Kinsale, Co. Cork, October 7th, 1910. The only other British record of 
this lark from Western Siberia is the Scottish specimen from the Flannan 
Islands, obtained February 24th, 1906 (W. Eagle Clarke, in Ami. Scot. 
Nat. Hist., 1906, p. 139). 
R. M. Barrington. 
Fassaroe, Bra v. 
