1850] Crow- flaking and Rat-hunting. 1 7 



off: but, at last, I espied him, quite dead, and on examina- 

 tion found that two grains of No. 7 had made their way 

 into his breast, and one leg 1 was broken in two places. So 

 we carried him home I not a little pleased at having slain 

 my first Curlew." 



An entry on July 2/th, " Shot my first Missel-Thrush," 

 may seem curious, but this bird was not common enough 

 at Castle Taylor to give him many chances. Nearly six 

 weeks earlier, on June igth, he had " wounded a Missel- 

 Thrush, but lost him." 



Elsewhere is a word on the " Crow-flaking " : 



"From the number of Rooks mentioned as killed, it will 

 easily be supposed that they are very numerous and very 

 much more tame than in England. This is, in fact, the 

 case, and the horrid tameness of the creatures struck me 

 very much on my first arrival, as they forcibly reminded 

 one of the stories told of a similar effect produced when 

 any land has been visited by famine or plague. I am 

 told that during the scarcity the birds died in great num- 

 bers, and, no doubt, their starvation taught them to dig 

 up the potatoes and turnips, in which depredations they 

 are now constantly engaged, and for which offence they 

 are proscribed." 



A note betraying some raciness of the soil speaks of 

 u joining in a rat-hunt, which, however, was no great 

 things, as we only killed three brace, and one was a mouse." 

 But a few days later came off " a capital rat-hunt, killed 

 8^ brace of vermin, only Walter and I working them." 

 This was wet weather sport, the heavy rain in August 

 interfering with projects of distant excursions. 



Needless to say, his butterfly net was not forgotten. 

 Indeed, we have seen that almost the first notes taken at 

 Castle Taylor recorded the capture of a Wood-white but- 

 terfly on the day of his arrival, and of a Bedford blue the 

 day after: and it is curious that even these two captures 

 would, if published at the time, have been new and in- 

 teresting records, so little had the Lepidoptera of Ireland 

 been yet studied. Four years later, the Rev. J. Greene 

 included both in his list (the first published) of Irish But- 

 terflies ; but in both cases he did so upon authority which 



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