©ije gvi&lj Jlatttrali^t. 



Vol.. II. SEPTEMBER, 1893. No. 9. 



THE BIRDS OF THE MIDI^AND I,AKES AND BOGS, 



CHIEFLY AS OBSKRVKD IN THE BREEDING-SEASON. 

 BY R. J. USSHER. 



Before I had visited those parts of Ireland herein referred 

 to, when I looked at the map of counties seamed with lakes 

 and their ramifications, I imagined vast swamps must exist, 

 where the w^aters lost themselves among extensive reed-beds. 

 In reality, however, Ireland being an undulating, not a flat 

 country, vast swampy solitudes are hardly to be found any- 

 where in summer. The shores of Irish lakes usually rise 

 rapidly into dry inhabited ground, often swelling into heights, 

 so that, except in certain bays, and at the tail-ends of lakes, 

 large reed-beds seldom occur. The humid boggy soil, how- 

 ever, even on sloping ground yields abundance of rushes, 

 Iris, Meadow-sweet, and other rank vegetation which affords 

 to ducks, Redshanks, I^apwnngs, and Snipe, cover to nest in, 

 and the numerous islands often contain scrub or natural wood. 

 The open islands are, unfortunately for the feathered race, 

 invaded habitually in the breeding season by persons fishing 

 on the lakes, who, in pursuit of green-drake flies for bait, 

 trample the whole surface. Elsewhere turkeys are fed on 

 eggs of gulls and terns, until the latter are driven from their 

 breeding-grounds. In certain shooting-preserves, however, as 

 the marshes of the Erken on Eord Castletown's property in 

 Queen's Co., at Barronston on Lough Iron in Westmeath, on 

 Killeenmore bog near Geashill, the property of lyord Digby, 

 and I^ough Key in Roscommon, which adjoins the demesne 

 of Rockingham, great assemblages of birds of many species, 

 breeding in peace, attest the benefits of protection. 



