430 Miscellaneous. 
at proper times to all who wish to enter,—all members and students 
of the university having power to admit visitors, and all strangers, 
without introduction, on entering their names. That the public are 
not ungrateful for such generous privileges, is evident from the long 
list of valuable donations recorded in the document which has given 
rise to these remarks. When a great and learned college thus sets 
so konourable an example, the spirit of science is sure to diffuse 
itself far and wide. We find it at work in Ireland among those who 
are to instruct the poor as well as among the educators of the higher 
classes. One of the many active naturalists of Belfast, Mr. R. Pat- 
terson, has just been delivering a course of lectures on the Inverte- 
brate animals to a class of 200 masters of the national schools— 
more than all the members of natural-history classes in London col- 
lected together! Yet there is no want of either zeal, ability or elo- 
quence on the part of our English professors. 
Occurrence of the Belted Kingfisher, Alcedo Alcyon, Linn., in Ireland. 
I have the pleasure to record the occurrence of this North Ame- 
rican bird in Ireland; a specimen, as I learn by letter from T. W. 
Warren, Esq. of Dublin, dated Nov. 21, 1845, having been shot by 
Capt. Smith at Annsbrook, county of Meath, about the first of the 
present month. It has fortunately been preserved, and on being 
shown to Mr. R. Ball (from whom also a letter respecting it has 
been received) was at once identified as 4. Alcyon. Mr.Warren adds, 
that when at Mr. Glennon’s, the well-known bird-preserver, on the 
day before the date of his letter, the gamekeeper of Mr. Latouche of 
Luggela (county of Wicklow) called to mention that he had lately 
seen a very large kingfisher at a stream connecting two lakes in that 
neighbourhood. He saw the bird very well, as it admitted of his 
approach within twenty yards: his description agreeing with the 
A. Alcyon, the specimen was shown to him, which he at once identi- 
fied as being of the same species as that which he had seen. 
This kingfisher—said to be the only species inhabiting North Ame- 
rica—is migratory there, and like other birds from the same conti- 
nent which have visited Ireland and Great Britain, has appeared here 
about the migratory period. As an American bird it is fully treated 
of by Wilson*, Audubon and Richardson}. The last author states 
that in summer ‘‘ it frequents all the large rivers in the fur countries 
up to the 67th degree of latitude.” It retires to winter in the South- 
ern States and the West India islands (Wilson and Richardson). 
Audubon remarks that “it is extremely hardy, and those individuals 
which migrate northward to breed, seldom return towards our 
Southern States, where they spend the winter, until absolutely forced 
to do so by the great severity of the weather,” vol. v. p. 548. This 
is I believe the first notice of the species being met with on the 
eastern side of the Atlantic. 
Belfast, Nov. 22, 1845. Wa. Tuompson. 
* Sir W. Jardine’s edit., vol. i. p. 348. + Orn. Biog. vols. i. and v. 
+ Fauna Bor. Amer. p. 339. 
