50 anatid;e. 



every winter, on the Irish coast, was that of Lurgan Green. Every- 

 where else that the bird has come under the notice of my corre- 

 spondents it is of rare occurrence ; in the nortli-west of Donegal, 

 on the coasts generally of Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, 

 Kerry, and Clare, it is reported to be scarce. Twenty-nine birds 

 were killed at one shot from a swivel-gun a few years ago at Mala- 

 liide, on the coast of Dublin. A flock was observed in Dublin 

 Bay on the 20th of January, 1850.^ In December, 1847, three 

 were shot in the harbour of Wexford. The first seen by Mr. E. 

 Chute, in Kerry, was a male bird, killed from a small flock on a 

 little lake to the west of Dingle, in the middle of November, 1848. 



Montagu; in the Supplement to his 'Ornithological Dictionary,^ 

 remarks : — " This species has generally been said to be abundant 

 on the coast of Ireland in the winter-season; we are, however, 

 informed by Sir William Elford, that it is certainly a mistake ; 

 the brent being commonly called by the same name has probably 

 occasioned the assertion, for that bird is taken in the bay of Belfast, 

 and other northern parts of that island in great abundance, but he 

 never could discern the ErytJiropiis among them." 



When visiting Loch-in-daal, island of Islay, in January 1849, 

 I observed that it possessed suitable feeding-ground for both the 

 bernacle and brent goose; extensive tracts of sand, with abun- 

 dance of low bordering greensward for the one, and spacious banks 

 of Zostera marina for the other. A flock of about two hundred 

 brent geese was seen standing by the edge of the retiring tide. I 

 was gratified to learn from Mr. Murray, formerly gamekeeper at 

 Islay House, that the loch is frequented by both species. The A. 

 leucopsis is called there " land bernacle ;" it has been becoming 

 scarcer of late years. 



Willughby (1678) remarked of the bernacle and the brent 

 goose, (which two species he was the first author to distinguish 

 properly,) that: — "we have seen both alive among his Majesty's 

 wild-fowl kept in St. Jameses Park," p. 360. It is pleasant to 

 the ornithologist to think, that, although the keeping up of a stock 



* Mr. J. Watters, jmi. 



