304 SCOLOPAC1D.E. 



in March : both localities on the rocky basaltic coast of An- 

 trim. On the county Down shore of Belfast Bay, within three 

 miles of the town, where it is of an oozy nature, with small tracts 

 of sand, two of these birds were seen, and one of them (an 

 adult) shot on the 24th of October, 1844; another had been 

 killed there a short time before. I had not previously known this 

 sandpiper to visit the bay ; a flock of eight or nine birds frequented 

 it from the beginning of October that year. On the 28th of Oct., 

 1845, a single bird (young of the year) was seen, and shot on the 

 gravelly beach at Thomson's embankment a short way lower down 

 the bay than the docks of the town. On the 7th of November, 

 1849, two were killed together at the Kinnegar; ODe of them 

 being a young bird of the year ; the other floated out to sea and 

 was lost. In March 1849, a purple sandpiper was shot at 

 Gransha Point, Strangford Lough, where but the one appeared, 

 in company with a ringed plover. The following is Mr. Mont- 

 gomery's note before referred to : — 



"Bee. 3rd or 4dk, 1822. — Got four of these birds out of six 

 on the rocks at Tyrella, about two miles north-east of Dundrum 

 [Down] : they were so tame, although there had been no hard 

 weather, that when shot at, they rose and flew but a short distance. 

 They always alighted on large stones ; never on the sands. I 

 killed two out of three, and my companion did the same.'" When 

 visiting Dundrum in August 1 836, 1 saw the gentleman here alluded 

 to, who considers that this sandpiper regularly frequents the rocks 

 on that coast about St. John's Point. One of these birds was ob- 

 tained in the winter of 1837-38 near Lurgan Green, county of 

 Louth.* 



Mr. W. S. Wall, bird-preserver, Dublin, presented me in 1833 

 with an immature specimen which was shot by himself in summer 

 at the Lighthouse beyond the Pigeon-house Port, Dublin Bay ; 

 near to which place the only one of these birds met with on any 

 part of the Irish coast, by T. W. Warren, Esq., was shot by him 

 about the 1st of November, 1831. Another geutleman mentions 



* Mr. H. H. Dorabrain. 



