220 SCOLOPACIDiE. 



but think it probable, the season being then so far advanced, 

 that they might breed there. 



Mr. Macgillivray has contributed to the third volume of 

 Audubon's ' Ornithological Biography ' an interesting account 

 of the greenshank, as observed by him in the Hebrides.* Mr. 

 Selby ('Edinb. Philos. JournaF) and Sir Wm, Jardine ('Brit. 

 Birds/ vol. iii.) have treated pleasingly of it as seen by them in 

 its breeding-haunts in Sutherlandshire. 



THE AVOCET. 



Recurvirostra avocetta, Linn. 



Is an extremely rare visitant. 



The earliest notice of its occurrence, of which I am aware, ap- 

 peared in Butty's ' Natural History of the county of Dublin ' 

 (vol. i. p. 341), where it is remarked — " A.D. 1767, in winter, 

 was shot in the Lots, near the North Wall, by Robert Bevin, 

 sexton of Christ Church, a bird very rarely found here, being 

 properly an Italian bird, called Avosetta and Beccostorto, from its 

 bill, generally three inches and a half long, and often turned up 

 near half its length. It is the Recurvirostra albo nigroque varia, 

 Willughby, Ornithologia, Tab. 60," &c. The following brief note 

 was communicated by me to the ' Annals of Natural History/ in 

 1840 : "The late B. S. Ball, Esq., of Youghal, informed me, some 

 time since, when looking over continental specimens of this bird 

 with him, that, many years ago, he shot an individual of the same 

 species near that town." " Mr. Wm. Warriner, of Bannow, on 

 the southern coast of Wexford, states, that he once saw an avocet 

 scooping in ^a marsh near Iris residence ; and remarks, that it 

 patted the ground with the convexity of its bill."t 



Major Walker once observed two avocets on the marsh of 



* As may be expected, it visits the islaud of Islay. I have sceu specimens 

 u hich were shot there. The species is noticed as an autumnal visitant to Orkney. 



t Mr. S. Toole ; — communicated in 1843. 



