NOTES AND QUERIES. 29 



of birds at lighthouses, I have recently had much correspondence with the 

 light-keepers. On April 25th Edward M'Carron, keeper at the Tearaght 

 Rock Lighthouse, off the coast of Kerry, wrote to me thus : — " There is 

 some solitary bird — so it seems, as there appears to be only one — makes a 

 noise so loud, or crows so loud, in the cliffs that we can hear it distinctly 

 in the dwellings. It sounds as follows, ' kuck, kuck, ko — kuck, kuck, ko.' 

 This is repeated a few times, and then there is an interval of some minutes. 

 For so far I can neither see it nor hear it in the daytime. I believe it is 

 called in this place the ' Night-bird.' " Towards the end of May I happened 

 to be on the island of Lambay, off the Dublin coast, for a few days, with my 

 friend Mr. H. C. Hart, and the coast-guard officer stationed there described 

 a remarkable note uttered by some bird at night-time round the island. 

 Curious to hear it, I started alone about midnight for a walk along the 

 cliffs. The night was calm and dark, and for a considerable time I stumbled 

 along among the briars and rabbit-holes close to the edge of the cliffs 

 without hearing anything. Having reached a dark little inlet, I suddenly 

 heard an unusual and loud noise. It seemed about a hundred yards out to 

 sea, and evidently came from something in motion. I thought I saw a 

 bird : the noise was loud, and is not easy to describe, the note being repeated 

 three times. Indeed had I not been prepared for some sound the noise 

 would have startled me. Within the space of half an hour I heard it four 

 or five times. Sometimes it approached near to the cliffs, and even seemed 

 a little way inland. In calm weather it would be heard a long distance over 

 the water. Thompson, in his ' Natural History of Ireland ' (vol. iii. p. 412), 

 speaking of the Manx Shearwater, says : — " Mr. R. Chute informed me, in 

 1846, that the Shearwater breeds on the larger Skellig Island, off the coast 

 of Kerry, whence a specimen was sent to him in July, 1850. They are 

 called ' Night-birds,' from the circumstance of their being only seen at night 

 about the rock." In July, 1880, I visited the Skelligs for botanical 

 purposes, and also the Tearaght Rock, twenty two miles north of the 

 Skelligs. I saw the Gannets breeding on the Little Skellig, and the 

 Manx Shearwater was seen in the neighbourhood of both islands. In May 

 last I saw this Shearwater near Lambay, where it is known to breed (Watters, 

 'Birds of Ireland,' p. 267). It is highly probable, from the foregoing 

 evidence, that the noise heard by the light-keeper at the Tearaght Rock and 

 the noise I heard at Lambay was produced by the Maux Shearwater. — 

 Richard M. Barhington (Fassaroe, Bray). 



[It does not appear to us that there is any evidence at all to connect 

 the sound heard with the Manx Shearwater, the author of the cry not 

 having been seen. All that can be said is that the note in question, being 

 unlike that of any of the Gulls or other well-known rock-haunting sea-fowl, 

 and the Manx Shearwater being nocturnal in its habits, it is probably the 

 author of the peculiar cry described. — Ed.J 



