156 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Raven's nest was thrice robbed of six eggs, and four of the 

 Shearwaters were taken from the holes in which their nests were 

 placed and wantonly destroyed by boys." In 1853 Watters, in his 

 'Natural History of the Birds of Ireland' (p. 267), added to this 

 list of birds the Common Gull, and remarked further, that— 

 " Amongst the land-birds which frequent the same (eastern) face 

 of the rocks we find the Peregrine (rarely of late years), the 

 Kestrel, Raven, Hooded Crow, Jackdaw, and Stare (the Chough 

 is also said to nidify in rare instances), the Wheatear, Window 

 Martin, Swift, and Rock Pigeon." 



Since the year 1870 I have frequently visited Lambay in the 

 breeding-season, and during the last four or five years I have 

 gone there regularly to botanize and watch the birds, staying 

 upon two occasions for several days, being indebted for my 

 accommodation upon the island to Mr. Dillon, the courteous 

 agent of Lord Talbot de Malahide. The above statements about 

 the Lambay birds are still substantially correct, but time has 

 produced alterations, and, in addition to a fuller account, I have 

 ventured to insert some observations about the range of the rarer 

 species on the east side of Ireland generally. With the winter 

 visitants I am not dealing. Lambay is probably visited as a 

 halting-place by most of the winter migrants, but there are no 

 sloblands or salt-marshes of any extent to attract coast-feeders, 

 so that a visit at that season would be most unlikely to repay 

 the trouble. 



Lambay is not very readily visited, and there is no public 

 accommodation ; moreover, the island is most happily preserved 

 as a rabbit-warren, so that the birds are but slightly molested. 



White-tailed Eagle, Halicetus albicilla, Gmelin.— Had an 

 eyrie on Lambay during the last century (Watters), but now seems 

 to have entirely deserted the east side of Ireland. I have been 

 continually amongst the Wicklow mountains for the past fifteen 

 or twenty years, and cannot be positive that I have ever met 

 with any Eagles there. In 1879 an Eagle was seen on Kippure, 

 feeding on a hare, by George Barker, wood-ranger. He believed 

 it was a Golden Eagle. This is the latest instance I am aware of. 

 A caretaker on Lough Bray, who has known the mountains there 

 for about sixty years, gave me some definite information :— " About 

 fifty years ago (circa 1832) I got to look at an Eagle's nest in the 

 cliffs above the upper lake. Up to that time they had always 



