A GERMAN VIEW OF THE FAUNA OF IRELAND. 343 
heath and brakes, and from clumps of young Scotch firs, forty or 
fifty were flushed in one afternoon. About this date a fine adult 
Merlin was seen at Beeston, near Cromer; and Mr. J. H. Gurney 
informed me of an apparent immigration of Barn Owls on the 
same part of the coast. On the 7th a small Owl, species not 
identified, was seen in the Cottage Wood at Northrepps, and on 
the 12th four Short-eared Owls were flushed on Roughton Heath. 
A fine young female Sea Eagle, of course announced in the local 
and other papers as a Golden Eagle, was shot near the Heath 
House at Holt on the 13th; an adult Peregrine at Brandon on 
the 18th, a young female on the 29th at Holkham, and two 
others in the county early in the month. 
A GERMAN VIEW OF THE FAUNA OF IRELAND. 
By Ernst FRIEDEL. 
(Continued from p. 296.) 
Amphibia and Reptilia, which may be obtained for stocking 
aquaria and closed cases at all large markets, are here un- 
represented; and I never met with a more universal detes- 
tation of such creatures than in Ireland. It is a generally 
accepted statement that there are positively no snakes, toads, 
or frogs in the Sainted Isle, and that when any evil-disposed 
person has attempted to introduce them they have died almost 
immediately. 
I gave my best attention to the creeping things here, and 
quote the following from Thompson’s ‘Natural History of 
Ireland’ :— 
“The Loggerhead Turtle, Chelonia caretta (Linn.), has been 
caught on the coast of Donegal, as well as near Youghal, and a 
Testudo, supposed to be a Snapping Turtle, was kept for some 
months in a pond at Fort William, near Belfast. In the ‘Northern 
Whig’ of July 12th, 1849, appeared a notice of a ‘fine young 
turtle, caught in the channel at Cork.’ Evidently both creatures 
had been brought there, probably in American vessels.* Testudo 
europea is absent from England as from Ireland. Zootoca 
* Not necessarily so. . caretta is very common in the Mediterranean, and 
only of oceasional occurrence in the Atlantic_—Ep. 
