THE LONG-TAILED DUCK. 151 



an iuteresting account of a whole nursery of young birds that came 

 under his observation. 



In March 1834, I was informed by Mr. Glennon, of Dublin, 

 that he had at one time received two fresh specimens of the long- 

 tailed duck from Wexford ; and subsequently, a sportsman resi- 

 dent in that town mentioned to me that he had known tliis bird, 

 as well as the pintail, to have been killed in the harbour there. 

 In Saunders's Neiosletter of February 13th, 1835, it was said 

 that Sir Hussey Vivian, on a late sporting excursion on the estate 

 of Sir Robert Gore Booth, in the west of Ireland, had shot the 

 Anas glacialis — which was correct : — the specimen was seen by 

 some of my ornithological friends. Mr. H. H. Dombrain in- 

 formed me that a fine male bird, sent to him in December 1836, 

 was caught at Lurgan Green (county of Louth) when asleep, by 

 a little girl, who stated that there were two of them, and that she 

 chose the prettier one with the long tail — the other had been a 

 female or young male. The same gentleman announced a female 

 bird as having been shot at Malahide, on the Dublin coast, at the 

 end of November 1840, in company with a gadwall. Another 

 was kdled there in the early part of the winter of 1843.^ I have 

 seen one which was stated to have been found dead on the 

 beach of Dublin bay on the 27tli of October, 1846, where, 

 in the winter of 1847-48 and in December 1848, single indivi- 

 duals were also obtained ;t the last was a female; — the tlu-ee 

 were immature. At the end of February in the last-named year, 

 a fresh specimen of an adult bird was purchased in Dublin. 



An old male from the Galway coast, said to have been killed 

 in the month of August, has come under my notice. J Three of 

 these ducks were killed in Drogheda Bay in the winter of 1848- 

 49, and in the month of March of the latter year an adult male 

 was seen there by Mr. E. J. Montgomery, and twice fired at by 



* Rev. Geo. Robiusou. t Mr. R. J. Montgomery. 



\ In the collection of Mr. J. Walters, juii., Dublin. lam informed by the Rev. 

 G. Robinson that an immature bird was sliot so early as in the month of August ' 

 (1841 ?) in Plymouth Sound, by .lohn Getcombe, Esq. The species is very rare 

 there at all times. 



