296 lauidjE. 



as the Mew Island is from this place, I should have imagined the 

 bird to have been probably wounded there by us on that day — as 

 wounded sea-birds often fly inland — but we were told that this or 

 a similar tern had been observed about a large sheet of water at 

 the locality on the 9th of the month. One found dead about the 

 1st of May, 1837, on the banks of the river Barrow, near Bag- 

 nalstown (about twenty-eight miles in a direct line from the sea, 

 or extremity of Waterford harbour), was shown to me by Mr. 

 Glennon, to whom, on account of its being a species never seen 

 before in the district, it was sent to be preserved. A remarkable 

 flight of arctic and common terns appeared in the southern and 

 western parts of England during high winds in May 184<2, 

 and great numbers were killed ; the 7th, 8th, and 9th of that 

 month^ being the days of their occurrence particularized. Mr. 

 H. E. Strickland and Mr. Austin noticed the circumstance in 

 the 9th volume of the 'Annals of Natural History' (pp. 351, 434, 

 and 518); Mr. Yarrell treated further of it in his work on 

 British Birds ; to which it has since been added, that " there 

 were multitudes along the coast and harbours of the north 

 and south of Cornwall and Devon " (Couch), and " at various 

 places on the coasts of Hampshire, Sussex, and Kent" (Knox). 

 A month after that time, the unusual circumstance of a large 

 flight of terns took place in the south of Ireland. On the 6th 

 of June, and for several days afterwards — according to Mr. R. 

 Davis, jun., of Clonmel — there were great numbers about all the 

 rivers in that quarter ; he procured several of them. On being 

 written to particularly with respect to the species and the exact 

 time, he replied : — they were all arctic, as observed at Cork, 

 Limerick, and Clonmel ; they were abundant in Limerick during 

 the third week of July (their visit extending over two or three 

 weeks, at least) : — they occurred on the Shannon in immense 

 profusion, and " were so little used to man as to be frequently 

 knocked down with sticks.'' Early in the summer of 1850, an 



* Not "June," as iuadverteiitlv mentioned l)v Sii Wm. Jardinc ('Brit, liirds/ 

 Tol, iv. p. 280). 



