178 ABDEID-ffi. 



for its site. Such is the confidence these birds have learned to 

 place in the Mahomedan part of the population, that it is not 

 uncommon to see every house in a Turkish village crowned with 

 their nests. They shun Christian habitations, for the Greeks 

 neither encourage nor permit them to build so near." (Vol. i. 

 p. 282.) 



The Black Stork (Ciconia nigra, Will.) is unknown as a visitant 

 to the island. Dr. Scouler included it in a ' Notice of Animals which 

 have disappeared from Ireland,'* on the authority of the following 

 words from Giraldus : — " Ciconise vero per totam insulam rarissimi 

 sunt illse nigra?." (Top. Hib. 707.) 



Four only of these birds have been recorded as obtained in Englandf 

 (none in Scotland) ; the first in May 1814. Although they migrate 

 so far northward in summer as Sweden, their line of flight is still 

 more easterly than that of the white stork ; even Holland being very 

 rarely visited by them. 



THE SPOONBILL. 



White Spoonbill. 



Plata lea leucorodia, Linn. 



Is a rare visitant. 



The earliest note of the occurrence of this bird in Ireland, known 

 to me, is that of Templeton, who mentions one as having been 

 shot at Bally drain Lake (county of Antrim), near Belfast : the 

 date is not mentioned in his published paper ; but, according to an 

 entry made in his journal on the 17th January, 1808, it was killed 

 a few years before that period. Mr. E. Ball— as noticed in the 

 Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1834 (p. 30) — informed 

 me, that in the autumn of 1829 three spoonbills were seen 

 in company near Youghal (Cork), and one of them shot : it was 

 preserved by Dr. Green of that town, and was then in his pos- 



* Journ. Geolog. Soc. of Dublin, vol.i. p. 227. t Yai-r. B. B. 2nd ed. 1845. 



