154 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 
Mr R. Lloyd Paterson also remarks upon their abundance 
in Belfast Lough on the 21st January 1871, along with 
Scaups, Wigeon, and Wild Ducks, considering it no exagger- 
ation to estimate the numbers seen of these species at 5000 
on that one day; but there is no mention of the present 
species as a resident or a breeding species. (Further notes on 
“Some of the Swimming Birds frequenting Belfast Lough,” 
a paper read before the Belfast Natural History, etc., Society 
on 21st April 1875.) 
The remark has been made that the birds thus appearing 
in numbers on tidal estuaries and bays in Ireland, pre- 
supposes a prior winter visitancy of the sheets of water in 
the interior; but this does not affect the question of summer 
residency or dates of earlier records of nesting. Neither do 
I consider it proved by any means that the Tufted Duck is, 
except when frozen out, only a frequenter of fresh water. 
Then at last Mr A. G. More, in the latest issue of his 
“List of Irish Birds, Etc.” (Dublin, 1885), says :—* Regular 
winter visitor in small numbers, preferring fresh water. A 
few breed on Lough Neagh, Lough Beg, on the Shannon 
Lakes, and in the County Monaghan” (“Fowler in Ireland,” 
p. 105): but in a circular, “ Enquiries respecting some Irish 
Birds,” dated 30th June 1895, he seems desirous of ascertain- 
ing fuller particulars of the nesting of the following species: 
—Wigeon, Tufted Duck, and Pochard. The date, therefore, of 
the first nesting of the Tufted Duck must have been recorded 
between the years 1875 and 1882, and the authority quoted 
by Mr A. G. More is Sir Ralph Payne Galway, whose book, 
above noticed, appeared in 1882. Mr A. G. More died 
in 1895. 
In a letter dated 21st August 1895, Mr Lloyd Paterson 
informs me that “the Tufted Duck is now a regular breeder 
in different suitable localities in the north of Ireland, and 
probably in increasing numbers; and inquiry of my nephew, 
who knows more about it of late years than I do, confirms 
this. He tells me it breeds regularly, and, he believes, in 
increasing numbers, on Lough Neagh, and the adjoining 
loughs—Beg and Portmore—the latter a favourite nesting- 
place for, among others, the Shoveller. The Tufted Duck also 
