270 LARID/E. 



More recent information has led to the belief that the species 

 might breed on that coast^ and more especially the fact that Mr. 

 Warren has seen or known the bird to be about Portmarnock or 

 Malahide every year (now summer 1850) in June and July since 

 the time he first met with it. About the 15th of June^ 1850, 

 one was shot and two others were seen at the island of Ire- 

 land's Eye. On the ]7th of July, 1850, as mentioned under 

 the Roseate Tern, Mr. Watters visited the Eockabill, a small 

 rocky islet well known as a breeding -haunt of some of the more 

 common terns, and saw there three of the Sandwich species, 

 and found one of their eggs. The only tern he saw perched on 

 the island was one of these. On his remarking to the boatmen 

 how scarce they were, they said that the large sJdrrg^ fly daily in- 

 land to feed on fresh-water fishes in the small streams, and return 

 to the rock at night ! The birds alluded to as shot along the sea- 

 coast (and there only, so far as I have heard) have probably been 

 wanderers from this rock, including some seen in Drogheda Bay 

 on the 2nd and 3rd of August, 1850. t Mr. Watters remarks, 

 that " as we often from the land observe the swallows and mar- 

 tins flying low, while the swift is screaming at a great height, so 

 the roseate, common, and arctic terns showed little timidity ; but 

 the large Sandwich species kept at a great distance, screaming 

 loudly. Its flight is exceedingly beautiful, outrivalliug even thalF 

 of the buoyant Eoseate, by its sudden turns and rapidity." 



The preceding information respecting the breeding-haunt of 

 the Sandwich tern, on the coast of Ireland, is all that can now 

 be given, and from the limited number of birds seen at any 

 period in that quarter, but few, I presume, have ever bred on 

 the island. The bird is of more frequent occurrence both in 

 England and Scotland than in Ireland, where my present informa- 

 tion respecting it, is confined to the eastern coast. Mr. Selby 

 gives an interesting account of the bird at its breeding-islets oft' 



* Skirr simply is applied here to the species of oi'dinary size — the roseate, com- 

 mou, and arctic terns. 



-)- By Mr. R. .J. Montgomery. 



