44 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. vn. 



coast.'"* Even as recently as the year 1900 we find 

 in his work on The Birds of Ireland, the text of the 

 article on the Tree-Sparrow runs : " Resident in one 

 district north of DubHn Bay since 1852, and increasing 

 there." Now while I observed a steady increase in the 

 numbers of Tree-Sparrows in the vicinity of DubUn for 

 ten years pre^-ious to 1901, when I left Ireland, and 

 also — towards the close of those years — noticed not only 

 increase of numbers in the old quarters but also an 

 extension of range inland from the coast, f still the sub- 

 sequent markedly wider distribution of this species which 

 became demonstrable a few years later, can hardl;y be the 

 outcome of direct extension of some of the steadily 

 multipHing members of the original co. Dublin colony: 

 for the next colonies which were discovered were too 

 remote from each other and from the Dublin colony to 

 favour the view that they were established by a process 

 of budding off, so to speak, from a common stem.J It 

 does not necessarily follow that the new colonies had onl}- 

 recently established themselves in the area where the}^ 

 were first found. I shall show presently that this 

 was not the case in regard to the Inishtrahull colony 

 which I discovered ; hence we cannot argue too posi- 

 tively that, prior to the discovery of the new colonies 

 now to be indicated, the species was resident only in the 

 vicinity of Dublin. I think the text of Mr Ussher's 

 article on the Tree-Sparrow A\ould read ^\•ith greater 

 accuracy if it ran : At present only known to 6e§ resident 

 in one district north of Dublin Bay, etc. etc. 



* Ussher, " Distribution of Birds Breeding in Ireland," Irish 

 Naturalist, Vol. VI., p. 71, 1897. 



t For instance in 1898 I obtained a specimen from C'rumlin, eight 

 miles inland from Baldoyle, the latter place being the headquarters 

 of the original colony {vide Ussher, Birds of Ireland, p. CO). 



X This argument scarcely holds good in the case of the little colony 

 of Tree-Sparrows quite recently discovered by Miss Helen M. Metcalfe, 

 an accoimt of which is published in the Irish Naturalist, for April, 

 1913, page 82. These birds were found at Johnston Bridge, co. 

 Kildare, and it is as likely as not that they represent a direct extension 

 of the original colony from the adjacent county of Dublin. 



§ The italicised words are those which I suggest prefixing. 



