VOLUME V. 



A FORTNIGHT WITH THE BIRDS OF 

 CONNEMARA. 



BY HARRY F. WITHERBY, F.Z.S. 



On May i8th last, I arrived in the town of Galway intent on 

 exploring Connemara. My sole object in so doing being to 

 find out as far as possible what birds were there, and to note 

 their habits and breeding-haunts. 



It may be as well to say at once that the following record is 

 very incomplete as regards inland birds, chiefly because, 

 finding the country uninteresting and the birds few, I made 

 my way as quickly as possible to the coast. Consequently 

 this paper must not in any way be taken as a record of all the 

 birds to be found in Connemara, but at the same time it is to 

 be hoped that these few notes may be of some interest to Irish 

 ornithologists. 



Birds are fairly numerous round Galway town. Yellow 

 Hammers, Blackbirds, Thrushes, Robins, Wheatears, 

 Chafiinches, Willow Wrens, Cuckoos, Corncrakes, Jackdaws, 

 and Magpies abound. All through Connemara I was struck by 

 the numbers of Corncrakes and Jackdaws. The absence of 

 the Whinchat, and more especially of the Stonechat, and the 

 omnipresence of the Wheatear, are also remarkable. 



After one day only in Galway I went on to Oughterard, but 

 as I confined my attentions to I^ough Corrib and its islands, 

 which have already been explored by Mr. Ussher, there will 

 be little important to say of my stay there. Of small birds I 

 found the Reed, Common and Yellow Buntings, Chaffinches, 

 and Blackbirds tolerably common on the islands, and Sedge- 

 warblers especially so. A Reed-bunting's nest with eggs 

 several feet up a tree was peculiar. Some of the islands 

 boajited a pair of Magpies, while others literally swarmed 

 with nesting Wood Pigeons, On one island I came across a 



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