6 NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. 



B. Chute, of Blennerville, county of Kerry, in Dingle Bay, same county, 

 and noticed by Mr. Thompson ;* and the second bird by a boating party 

 near the Giant's Causeway, in the summer of 1848. I have, however, 

 little doubt but it will yet be more frequently met with on our coasts, 

 as it is not unlikely that it may heretofore have been overlooked amongst 

 the large number of common Guillemots and Eazor-bills at the breeding 

 stations ; and, indeed, this has been the case, as the bird has been ob- 

 served several times, though still, from some cause or other, rare in our 

 museums. 



Tor several days prior to the 24th October we had a succession of 

 heavy gales from the south and south-west, but either on the night of 

 the 23rd, or on the morning of the 24th, the wind veered round to the 

 north; and it occurred to me that as Killala Bay lay quite open to the 

 north, the sudden change of wind to that point might drive ashore on 

 the Enniscrone sands any wearied birds that had been weakened by the 

 long continuance of the storms. I accordingly visited Enniscrone, 

 and in the course of my search I first met with several dead Puffins 

 (Fratercula arctica), both adults and young of the year, and picked up 

 one alive, but completely water-logged, and so weak that it died shortly 

 afterwards. While engaged in examining the latter bird my atten- 

 tion was drawn to a great black-backed Gull, which was dragging 

 and trying to tear something that was lying partly in the water and 

 apparently just washed ashore by the surf. I drove off the Gull, and 

 on reaching the spot picked up the fine specimen of the adult Eulmar 

 (Procellaria glacialis) now before you ; but it was in a most wretched 

 state of condition, nearly every feather disarranged and thoroughly 

 water-soaked, and so utterly exhausted as to be unable to walk, or even 

 stand ; it died a short time after. A few hundred yards further on, I 

 again saw the same Gull standing at the edge of the water, and watch- 

 ing something that he was afraid to attack. I immediately hastened to 

 where he was standing, and there found a second Eulmar just come 

 ashore, and in as miserable looking state of condition as the first one 

 found, except that it was not so weak, being able to walk a little, and 

 well able to use its powerful beak in self-defence, which had, perhaps, 

 saved it from the Gull. I at first thought to keep it alive, but when I 

 reached home it had become so very weak that I thought it better to 

 put an end to its sufferings by killing it, and saved it as a specimen by 

 preserving the skin. 



The Eulmar Petrel (P. glacialis) appears to be of very rare occur- 

 rence on our coast ; and on looking into Thompson's book I find that 

 he records the capture of only three specimens, of which two were shot 

 on the southern coast, the first at Inchedony Island by Captain Hun- 

 gerford in 1832, and presented to Sir Charles Paget, then forming a 

 collection of birds at Cove ; the second, shot at Castle-Freke, in the 

 county of Cork, by the Bev. Joseph Stopford, in the month of October, 



* "Annals of Natural History," 1848, vol. 



