340 PHALAROPID.E. 



In November 1838 one was killed near Malahide, when swim- 

 ming in the sea, accompanied by two others. A specimen 

 which Came under examination in a recent state had been obtained 

 about the 20th of September, 1839, near Portaferry : its stomach, 

 with the exception of a very few seeds of different kinds, was filled 

 with larvae and perfect insects. At the end of the year 1840, or 

 beginning of 1841, two of these birds were shot on the Down 

 shore of Belfast Bay, about two and a half miles from the town. 

 Mr. E. Davis, jun., of Clonmel, informed me in February 1842, 

 that three individuals only of this species had come under his 

 notice ; one, procured at Ballibrado, near Cahir, county of Tip- 

 perary, on the 11th of October, 1841; a second, killed the fol- 

 lowing day on a pool of water close to Clonmel ; a third, seen by 

 him for a long time on the latter day swimming in the middle of 

 the river near the last-named town, and feeding all the while. He 

 remarked that " they all seemed quite unused to man, and, though 

 excellent swimmers and fliers, allowed themselves to be closely 

 approached." At the end of October 1841, an example was 

 'killed near Killinchy, county of Down. In a letter from a bird- 

 preserver in Wexford, dated November 6, 1841, it was mentioned 

 that he had a few days before purchased a fresh specimen of a 

 phalarope, shot in that neighbourhood. Birds of this species 

 " appeared in different parts of the south in the winter of 1841-42. 

 Two were taken one day on the river Suir, and another came into 

 the possession of Mr. S. Moss, of Youghal, about the same time.'"'* 

 At the beginning of the year 1842, one was obtained in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Downpatrick. On the 30th of October, 1843, a pha- 

 larope, which was brought to me, had been shot in the Milewater 

 river, near Belfast, where subject to the flow of the tide ; it was 

 described as beating very quickly with its feet in swimming, and 

 nodding its head much : the shooter remarked, that although 

 fowling in the bay for twelve years he had not met with one of 

 these birds before. 



On the 6th of December, 1844, a wild-fowl shooter killed at a 



* Fauna of Cork, p. 13. 



