THE REDSHANK. 207 



With respect to inland localities, — a gentleman observed a pair 

 of redshanks on the 11th of May, 1845, in a swamp near Killa- 

 gan, about half-way between Ballymena and Ballymoney (Antrim), 

 and from the manner in which they flew at his dogs, he had no 

 doubt of their having a nest near the spot. In the Bog of Allen, 

 and near Mountainstown, county of Meath, they breed ; — as numbers 

 do annually in moory swamps about Lough Conn, and on the banks 

 of the river Mayo, in the county of that name.* Mr. G. Jack- 

 son (gamekeeper) has seen them about all the lakes and rivers 

 he is acquainted with in Connaught ; — " the upper Shannon and 

 the tributaries of that river in the county of Roscommon — the 

 river Suck and the Moy in Mayo — also at Lough Gara, near the 

 town of Boyle." He saw "more or less of the young every 

 year, from 1828 to 1840, particularly when fishing on the river 

 Lung, the principal tributary to Lough Gara." I observed 

 several redshanks on the banks of the river Shannon, between 

 Limerick and Shannon harbour, on the last day of July, 1840, 

 and imagined them to be indigenous birds which had been bred 

 in some of the adjoining marshy tracts. 



Naturalists, treating of this species as a British bird, seem to 

 consider that all the redshanks frequenting the shore are bred in 

 the country. They describe it as on the coast in autumn and 

 winter, and retiring inland to breed, without, in so far as I have 

 observed, alluding to any migration northward of Great Britain 

 for that purpose. Of the numbers, however, that are on the 

 Irish coast, the vast majority must have been brought up in more 

 northern latitudes. 



A friend whose residence was on the banks of the tidal river 

 Lagan, near Belfast, observed that for about a month in autumn 

 (September), and then only, redshanks annually resorted to the 

 oozy borders of the river above Ormeau Bridge when accessible 

 at low water .t In autumn and winter they sometimes appeared 

 about a tract of low-lying meadows near that town, when flooded by 

 heavy rains, and on the shore of Lough Neagh I have seen flocks 



* Mr. B. Ball. f On the 24th of December I once saw a few feeding here. 



