THE LITIXK AUK. 219 



Beggs, of Borris Castle, Borris-in-Ossory, — on the eastern borders 

 of Queen's county; — a place in the middle of the island, almost 

 equally distant from the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. About 

 the same time a specimen was picked up dead, but quite recent, 

 on the strand, Dublin Bay. In October 18-11, another of these 

 birds, taken on a pond near Pilltown, county Kilkenny, along with 

 some wigeon and teal, came into the possession of Dr. Burkitt of 

 Waterford. Thus about the same time, the little Auk was 

 obtained in three counties in the southern half of Ireland, a fact 

 wliich immediately suggests its occurrence in unwonted numbers in 

 England. By turning to Yarrell's work, we find (vol. iii. p. 359) 

 that the species prevailed there to an extent never known before, 

 having been met with that month, after a prevalence of storms 

 from the N.N.E., over a great part of the coast from the county 

 of York to Sussex. About, or soon after this time, numbers were 

 also taken in the inland counties. On other occasions, this 

 bird, like the stormy petrel, (though not so often,) has been 

 found dead far inland in England, where it has also been observed, 

 occasionally, on ponds. A pair of Httle auks were once seen in 

 Cork harbour by Dr. J. R. Harvey. 



"Guillemots, common, black, and alba \_alle'^^" are mentioned 

 by Colonel Sabine, in the Appendix to Ainsworth's Description of 

 the Caves of Ballybunian, in Kerry, as having been seen there by 

 him on wing in July 1833. From the bird being observed at this 

 period of the year, we should like to be informed if it breeds there ; 

 but it is not mentioned as doing so in the communications with 

 wliich I have been favoured by the late Mr. T. E. Neligan of Tralee, 

 or Mr. R. Chute of Blennerville, in that neighbourhood. The for- 

 mer gentleman merely remarked (Eeb. 1837), that a specimen which 

 he had seen was captured on a fresh-water lake, a quarter of a mile 

 from the sea, near Yalentia; the latter obtained three or four in- 

 dividuals on the coast of Kerry in the winter of 1842-43. 



A little auk, in adult summer plumage, was obtained either in 

 Belfast or Strangford Lough, more probably in the former, on the 



* Having called the attentiou of Col. Sabiue to the apparent misprint of alha 

 for alle, he informed me that the latter was meant. 



