’ 
474 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
on the River Bann, near Bann Bridge, the much-coveted 
molluse being the Pearl-bearing Mussel, Unio margaritifer. The 
author says:—‘‘ The common method of fishing for these 
mussels in the Bann is very simple. In the warm months, 
while the river is low and clear, the poor people wade into the 
water, and some with their toes, some with wooden tongues, and 
others with sharp sticks, thrust into the opening of the shells, 
take them up. But this method can be practised only in shallow 
water ; whereas the large mussels and the greater quantities are 
found in deep smooth water. If dredges or other mechanical 
contrivances were used to fish the deep waters in the Bann, they ~ 
might probably meet with better success in the size, and it may 
be in the colour of the pearls.”” But he adds:—‘‘The pearl- 
fishery in this river is of late not much pursued, few pearls 
being to be met with, and those in smooth deep water. Most 
that are found there now are not much larger than the head of a 
small pin, and of a dusky faint colour; yet a pearl has been 
within these few years taken near Bann Bridge of the size of a 
middling pea, but so muddy and full of specks that it was of 
little value.” 
Sir Hans Sloane had some of these pearls sent him, and said 
they were of the same sort with those of England and Lorrain, 
and probably differed little from the British pearls described by 
Tacitus as subfusca ac liventia—of a pale brownish colour. 
In Chapter xviii. an account is given ‘‘Of the Feathered 
and Finny Tribes of this County.” Amongst the more remark- 
able birds noticed are the Chough, sometimes seen in the 
neighbourhood of Killileagh, but ‘‘a stranger to the rest of 
Ireland except a few on the shores of Lough Earn in the County 
of Fermanagh, and (as we are informed) some in the County of 
Clare;”’ the Bittern, ‘frequenting quaggy marshes among 
bulrushes and reeds, and common in the lower Ardes and about 
Magherelin and other places”; the Water Ouzel, ‘‘a bird very 
common in this county, and to be found about many rivers near 
the mountains, and sometimes about rivers at several miles 
distant from them;”’ the Black-tailed and Bar-tailed Godwits and . 
the Stone Curlew “‘often met with on the shores of this county, on 
Anahilt Bog, and about Killileagh.” Assuming that no mistake 
was made in identifying the species, it is curious that a bird 
characterised a century later by Thompson as an extremely rare 
a Se vr 
