NOTES FROM THE COUNTY MAYO. 181 
the fearful losses of the previous winter. Blackbirds and 
Thrushes, even more than the two previously mentioned species, 
show great mortality in bird life caused by the frosts of 1878-79, 
for in places where a score of Blackbirds might be seen in ordinary 
years, now only two or three—or at most half a dozen—birds are 
now to be met with; and as for Thrushes, two or three are all 
I have seen throughout the winter, but on the 2nd of this month 
I heard two birds singing about the place. 
Our shore birds appeared in about their usual numbers, with 
the exception of Lapwings, which were unusually numerous, and 
more so than in the great Lapwing year of 1877; all through 
September, October, and up to the middle of November, the 
immense flocks assembled by day on the sands and along the 
shores was really wonderful, and by the 5th of November their 
numbers were so largely increased that when disturbed by the 
appearance of a Peregrine, or the discharge of a gun, and the 
flocks, on rising, joining together, they looked more like swarms 
than flocks of birds. They thus continued until nightly frosts 
commenced between the 15th and 20th, when they began to 
diminish in numbers, and by the end of the month very few 
remained about the sands, these also disappearing with the 
setting-in of the severe frost the first week of December. A 
curious fact connected with the habits of the Lapwings in this 
locality is that very few, if any, come down to the sands and 
shores of the estuary by day, and while the nights are dark they 
appear to keep altogether to their inland feeding-grounds, only 
assembling on the sands and shores by day, while the moon is 
strong and bright. My friend Captain W. K. Dover, of Keswick, 
who is a most successful wildfowl shooter, and well acquainted 
with the habits of our shore birds, assigns as the cause of this 
peculiar habit of the Lapwings that, during the dark nights, they 
are unable to obtain a sufficiency of food, and are in consequence 
obliged to feed during the greater part of the day also, but that 
during the moonlight nights they obtain such an abundance 
of food that they do not require any by day, and are thus enabled 
to come down to the sands in the mornings, and rest undisturbed 
all day. When on the sands, Lapwings do not stand so close 
together as Golden Plovers, and though so much more numerous, 
do not present to the punt-shooter such tempting shots, and in 
consequence, unless crowded up on a point of sand or shore 
