28o THE FOWLER IN IRELAND. 



any others on the Irish coast. P. Cornish, who 

 was sometime in charge, informed me that birds in 

 countless numbers collect round the lantern on dark 

 nights ; and that he has caught Woodcock, Snipe, 

 Cuckoos, Partridges, Crows, Pigeons, and Sea-gulls. 

 He says it is very easy to catch them by hand, for 

 they appear quite blinded as they beat and flutter, 

 like moths, against the glass. The Tuscar is seven 

 miles from the shore, and it is curious that non- 

 migratory diurnal birds, such as Crows and Par- 

 tridges, should leave the land for the distant glare 

 of light. The lighthouse keepers to whom I have 

 spoken on the south-west coast of Ireland, state 

 that very few, and in most parts no birds are killed 

 against the glass during the time of migration. 

 The Cock and Snipe, however, being night fliers and 

 feeders, get killed against these lights now and then 

 during the winter ; but not when the passage is on 

 in spring and autumn. 



G. Brownell, now of St. John's Point Lighthouse, 

 was formerly at the Tuscar for three years, where 

 he once shot a Goatsucker, and another time a 

 large Owl on the rock.* In the months of 

 September and February, he says, he has often 

 caught in one night some two hundred Black- 

 birds, Thrushes, and Starlings. G. Dunleary, now 



* A more curious capture of an Owl, and a valuable one too (the 

 Snowy Owl), took place in September, 1879, on board a sailing vessel 

 three hundred miles south-west of Cape Clear. It was preserved by 

 Mr. Rohu of Cork, and is now in the possession of a tradesman of 

 that town. I may add that, exclusive of this one, five Snowy Owls 

 have been obtained in Ireland, to my knowledge, during the past few 

 years. A pair were killed almost at the same time near Pontoon, 

 co. Mayo, in 1876. 



