Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 501 



which I saw in the museum of the Royal Dublin Society in 1834, 

 was stated by Mr. W. S. Wall, bird-preserver, to have been killed 

 on the banks of the canal near the metropolis in December 1831, 

 when another was seen in company with it. By a letter from Mr. 

 R. Davis, jun., of Clonrael, dated Feb. 1837, I learned that, six years 

 before that time, a P. major was shot at St. Johnstown, in the same 

 county. To the fifth vol. of the ' Annals ' I communicated the fol- 

 lowing note on the greater spotted woodpecker. " On Nov. 13, 1839, 

 one of these birds was shot at Castlereagh, near Belfast, by Mr. 

 Greenfield, who remarks that it was ' very tame,' and when fired at 

 was engaged in pecking into a dead tree ; it seemed to be unaccom- 

 panied by any of its species. It is a male bird, but not in adult 

 plumage ; and has been liberally presented by the gentleman just 

 named to the Belfast Museum." 



Smith, in his ' History of Cork,' remarks under " Hoopoe" — " Mr. 

 Willoughby ranks it among the woodpeckers, of which I have not 

 yet seen one in this county." In the same author's ' History of 

 Waterford ' there appears " Picus Mortis, the woodpecker, a bird 

 rare in this county:" can P. martins here be meant? Rutty enu- 

 merates the " Picns varius minor , lesser spotted woodpecker," as one 

 of the birds of the county of Dublin ; and it likewise appears in Dr. 

 Patrick Browne's ' Catalogue of the Birds of Ireland,' into which it 

 was probably copied from Rutty. All these notices of woodpeckers 

 are very unsatisfactory*. 



The Tree Creeper, Certhia familiaris, Linn., generally 

 inhabits districts throughout Ireland in which old wood pre- 

 vails, and is everywhere resident. 



Owing to its habits, it is perhaps of all our native birds the least 

 known, but to the ornithologist is particularly interesting, from being 

 the only one of the zogodactyle birds indigenous to the island : 

 its presence too throughout the winter is an additional attraction. 



* I have been told that the green woodpecker is found in an old wood 

 in the county of Donegal, but no proof was ever afforded : — when in Dublin 

 some years ago, I saw in the possession of a bird-preserver a fresh example 

 of this species, which was accordingly believed to have been shot in Ireland ; 

 but by inquiry from the owner, I leai'ned that it had been sent him from 

 England : other similar cases respecting the Ficus viridis have occurred to 

 me. 



A recent specimen of the Nuthatch {Sitia europ^a), sent to a bird-pre- 

 server in the metropolis, was on the same presumptive evidence as the 

 green woodpecker mentioned to me as an Irish bird ; but on inquiry it was 

 found to have been killed in Wales. This species is not known to have ever 

 visited the island. 



Wryneck, Yiaix Torquilla, Linn. There is no record of this species 

 having ever been met with in Ireland, On the 29th of April last I saw one 

 of them among some shrubby plants in the island of Sphacteria, which 

 bounds the western side of the fine bay of Navarino. On the 2.Tth of the 

 same month, a wryneck which alighted in II. M.S. Beacon, when about sixty 

 miles to the south-east of Calabria, was captured, as mentioned in the ' An- 

 nals,' vol. viii. p. 127. 



