324 RALLIDiE. 



been within the island. They are more or less plentiful, too, in 

 different years — in the winter of 1834, they were particularly 

 numerous, and killed by all our sportsmen (to whom from their 

 mode of flight they prove the easiest of shots) : a few were also 

 daily to be seen exposed with other birds for sale in the shops of 

 Belfast. Within the first week of January 1841, Mr. J. R. Garrett 

 saw many about Clough, and not less than a dozen in the 

 course of a day.* The greatest number that has occurred during 

 one day in Down and Antrim, to another sporting friend (who 

 has had excellent opportunities of meeting with them) was 

 six, which he saw in the King's Moss (Antrim) on the 20th of 

 September, 1836. Further, the species was known only to my 

 correspondents in the north-west of Donegal, t the neighbour- 

 hood of Dublin, J and county of Kerry, || as an autumnal or winter 

 visitant.^" 



The first of these birds that fell to my own gun when I was a 

 juvenile shooter, did so under singular circumstances. I had fired 

 at a snipe on Holywood warren, wounded (as was imagined), 

 and marked it down. On walking towards the spot where it 

 pitched or fell, and looking cautiously about when within a near 

 shot of the place, I saw a bird at the edge of a little plashy 

 spot, bleeding apparently at the bill, which was concluded to be 

 the dying snipe. Lest it should escape again, I fired at the bird 

 on the ground, and to my amazement on going to the spot, the 

 victim appeared in the shape of a water-rail, a species which I 

 had never before seen, and the natural redness of whose bill led 

 me to believe it was that of the snipe covered with blood. The 

 snipe could not again be sprung, and probably had dropped 

 dead. At all events it was the innocent cause of the death of 

 the water-rail. 



* They are common in the same haunts here at all seasons of the year. 



f Mr. J. V. Stewart. | Mr. R. J. Montgomeiy. || Mr. T. F. Neligan. 



*|[ In the island of Islay, Scotland, it is known only to the keeper as a bird regu- 

 larly seen in winter. I do not, however, take it for granted in any of. these instances, 

 that the species is in the locality only at the seasons named. In autumn and winter 

 alone will it come under the direct notice of the sportsman. 



