20 16 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



settlements on Killala Bay and at Belraullet). It is highly probable 

 that it will be found further .southland one has been reported from 

 Kerry, though this needs confirmation. 



Fringilla caelebs, Linn. Chaffinch. — Winter visitor to Clare Island from 

 October to March, as it is to most of the treeless coast distiicts and 

 islands from Donegal to Kerry. It is common and breeds regularly on 

 the mainland round Louisburgh and Westport, and throughout western 

 Connaught and Donegal it is the commonest finch in summer. A few 

 have bred of late years on A chill and the Mallet and about Dingle, 

 though said formerly to be exclusively winter visitors to those districts, 

 where flocks continue to pass the winter. Chaffinches have repeatedly 

 arrived on Black Rock, Mayo, between 21st and 24th October (Barrington), 

 and numbers visit the Tearaght and Skelligs, especially in hard frosts 

 when there is a rush of birds to those islands and to the Isles of Aran. 

 The preponderance of those in female plumage which arrive in autumn 

 has been observed on Clare Island, the Mullet, and repeatedly on the 

 Tearaght. 



Fringilla montifringilla, Linn. Bramblixc;. — Irregular winter visitor to the 

 coasts and islands of Mayo and Kerry, which appears to arrive generally 

 on the eastern and south-eastern shores of Ireland, not always reaching 

 the west. Many were seen on Achill by Ed. Williams in October and 

 November, 1898. Specimens have been sent to Williams & Son from 

 Achill, Castlebar, and Killala. Barrington has received one from the 

 Skelligs, shot out of a flock of forty, and others from the Bull Bock, 

 Tearaght, and Donegal. Light-keepers frequently fail to recognize this 

 species, and it probably visits Clare Island unrecorded. 



Linota cannabina (Linn.). Linnet. — Observed all over Clare Island in June 

 and July and in Mocks in September. It breeds on Tory Island, Aranmore 

 and western Donegal, and commonly on Achill, north and west Mayo, 

 and southward to Clare and Valencia : but we have no winter specimens 

 as Barrington has from south-eastern lighthouses. Jt is quite possible 

 that some of the flocks of " Grey Linnets," so often reported by light- 

 keepers at that season on islands from Aranmore to the Bull Bock (includ- 

 ing Clare Island), represent this species ; but as light-keepers do not 

 record Twites, which we know from specimens occur in winter on the 

 west coast, most of the observations may include the latter. Barrington 

 has dwelt on this in his " Migration of Birds," pp. 1 35-137; and he thinks 

 that errors of identification are more numerous in the case of the Linnet 

 . . than of any other species. 





