206 SCOLOPACIDJE. 



a low tabular rock outside the southern entrance to Belfast 

 Bay, annually resorted to by great numbers of terns {Sterna 

 arctica, S. hirundo, S. Doiigallii), for the purpose of breeding, 

 a flock of seven or eight redshanks, betraying great consternation, 

 flew frequently around us, never approaching nearer than about 

 seventy yards ; just before they appeared, a single bird, for 

 some time kept circling above us at the same distance, ringing 

 its shrill notes upon our ears, and from its apparent uneasiness we 

 concluded that its nest could not be far off. When upon the island, 

 on the 24th of June in the following year, a similar part was played 

 by a small flock of these birds, and but for their being congre- 

 gated, I should have supposed they had nests in the locality ; — even 

 so they may have had, and their fears at our approach may have tem- 

 porarily banded them together. In the same manner, I saw flocks 

 of them on the 20th and 21st of June, 1832, about some of the 

 low rocky islets in Strangford Lough. Our boatmen, who, 

 earning their livelihood chiefly by fishing and shooting, knew 

 much about birds, stated that redshanks breed on some of the 

 islands every year, where they find their nests. These are said 

 to be on the gravelly or shingly beach, like those of the ring 

 dotterel, and to contain three or four eggs, which they correctly 

 described as to size and colour. 



When visiting a different part of this lough, on the 22nd 

 of June, 1846, we saw a small flock of redshanks, and our 

 boatmen assured us that they breed on the islands, placing 

 their nest high up on the shingle, between tide-mark and the 

 grassy margin. The men have often found their eggs, respecting 

 which they could not be mistaken, as the birds were seen rising 

 from the nests. In localities of a similar nature about Achil Beg 

 and Galway Bay, small flocks and single birds were seen by us at 

 the end of June and beginning of July, 1834. They breed on 

 the Dublin coast at Donabate, where their eggs have been pro- 

 cured,* and in islands and marshes embanked off the sea, on the 

 coast of Donegal.t 



* Mr. R. J. Montgomery . f Mr. J. V. Stewart. 



