THE BELTED KINGFISHER. 373 



of Clonmel, received six of these birds ; the extreme cold of that 

 month will be remembered.' 55 ' All these are remarkable cases. 



My friend Richard Langtry, Esq., when grouse-shooting at 

 Aberarder, in Inverness-shire, in the season of 1840, met with a 

 kingfisher several times, from the middle to the end of September, 

 about a wild mountain-rivulet at a considerable elevation, whose 

 banks were destitute of wood or any cover. In the middle of 

 August I once saw three of these birds in company at the Pontine 

 marshes between Rome and Naples. 



Mr. Waterton, in Ins Essays on Natural History, treats of the 

 kingfisher in a most pleasing manner. 



BELTED KINGFISHER. 



Alcedo alcyon, Linn. 



Two individuals of this species have been met with about 



the same period. 

 They were thus noticed in a communication which I made to the An- 

 nals of Natural History, for December, 1845. "I have the pleasure 

 to record the occurrence of tins North American bird in Ireland; 

 a specimen (as I learn by letter from T. W. Warren, Esq., of 

 Dublin, dated Nov. 21, 1845,) having been shot by Frederick A. 

 Smith, Esq., at Annsbrook, county of Meath, on the 26th of 

 October last. It has fortunately been preserved, and on being 

 shown to Mr. R. Ball, was identified as A. Alcyon : this gentle- 

 man considers that the full strong plumage of the specimen de- 

 notes a truly wild bird, and not an individual that had escaped 

 from confinement. According to the descriptions of Wilson and 

 Richardson, it is a female, and not, at all events, in younger 

 plumage, than that of the second year. Mr. Warren adds, 

 that when at the shop of Mr. Glennon, the well-known bird- 

 preserver, on the day before the date of Ins letter, the game- 

 keeper of Mr. Latouche of Luggela, county of Wicklow, called 

 to mention that he had, within the last few days, seen a very large 

 kingfisher, at a stream connecting the lake of Luggela with 



* "In severe winters, they sometimes become so tame, that they even venture 

 within a few feet of the door of Bathgate Mill, which is situated in the immediate 

 vicinity of houses " Mr. Weir in Macgillvray's Brit. Birds, vol. hi. p. 679. 



