VOL IX.] RICHARD MANLIFFE BARRINGTON. 135 



nesting home of the Great Shearwater bemg proved 

 groundless. In 1897 occurred an event of great import- 

 ance in Barrington's life — his most happy marriage with 

 Lena Gyles, daughter of Capt. G. Gyles, of Kilmurry, co. 

 Waterford. An official appointment as Inspector of 

 Management of Purchased Estates under the Land Com- 

 mission, a few years later, considerably lessened the 

 amount of time he could now give to ornithology, but he 

 still responded with all his old zeal to as many calls as 

 could be met. 



His spare time Avas still given — though only in the form 

 of hurried rushes — ^to visits paid with one or more of his 

 ornithological friends to islands or other haunts of bird- 

 life, and in these expeditions he particularly interested 

 himself in promoting the work of the Irish Society for 

 Protection of Birds, of which he was a leading member. 

 In his home life he missed no opportunity of instilling 

 lessons on natural history into his children's minds, and 

 though botany A^'as in general the favourite subject, it 

 need not be added that the birds had a good " innings." 

 The charming grounds of Fassaroe are breeding haunts 

 of two such interesting birds as the Blackcap (very local 

 in Ireland) and the Crossbill ; and it afforded him a rare 

 satisfaction during the present year to watch a pair of 

 Crossbills at their nesting operations near his house, 

 while some observations well worthy of record on the nest 

 material used by the Blackcap furnished matter for his 

 last communication to this journal, only a few weeks 

 before his death. 



It is pleasing to reflect that the last summer of his life 

 must have been the happiest he had spent for many years, 

 for on his release early in 1915 from the responsibilities 

 of his Land Commission work, he was able to throw himself 

 with a long unwonted freedom into his old studies, and 

 in the course of one nesting season successfully looked up 

 at their homes all the rarest Irish breeding birds — the 

 Red-throated Diver, Red-necked Phalarope, Roseate 

 Teni, and Common Scoter — besides fuiding a new Irish 



