176 Contributions to the 



indigenous to that neighbourhood. Two mature male specimens 

 were shot, I have been told, near Dublin, in July 1836. The hen- 

 harrier does not ajjpear in Mr Stewart's published catalogue of the Birds 

 of Donegal ; but in a letter, with which he lately favoured me, that 

 gentleman mentions it as a subsequent addition, but at the same time 

 as a rare and only occasional visitant. It is stated by Mr R. Ball to 

 be sometimes shot about Youghal, and is enumerated among the 

 birds seen in August 1835, in Connemara, by Mr Lingwood. * 



When looking for snipes in a boggy spot in the Belfast mountains, 

 I once shot a female bird of this species, hovering in the manner of 

 a kestrel over it. She was not alarmed by the presence of myself 

 and friend, nor by that of our dogs engaged in " beating" the ground 

 immediately beneath. 



A gentleman of my acquaintance has long known " white hawks" 

 to have their nests every summer in his mountains at Ballynascreen 

 (Londonderry,) where he had two of them last year. They are always 

 placed on the ground among the heath. When at " the Horn" in 

 1832, the gamekeeper told me of his having the winter before seen 

 a " white hawk" strike a curlew (Numenius arquata) in passing, and 

 break its wing, which so disabled the bird, that it became an easy cap- 

 ture to my informant. In a communication lately received from the 

 Rev. Thomas Knox of Toomavara, it is remarked under the head 

 " Hen-Harrier" — '' From the description given by different persons, 

 I have no doubt that this bird frequents the bogs adjoining the Shan- 

 non, where it is called the ' white kite.' I have not been able to get 

 one of them shot, but have seen it at a distance frequently." A 

 " large bluish-white hawk" has been mentioned to me by a correspon- 

 dent, as frequent about Clonmel. The localities have been thus par- 

 ticularised, as the ash-coloured harrier may possibly be the species al- 

 luded to under some of the latter appellations. 



Eagle Owl — Buho maximus, Sibbald. — The only record of the 

 eagle owl's occurrence in Ireland appears in Mr Stewart's Catalogue 

 of the Birds of Donegal, in the following words : — " Four of these 

 birds paid us a visit for two days, after a great storm from the north, 

 when the ground was covered with snow. They have not since been 

 seen here. As I am informed that a pair of them breed in Tory 

 Island, about nine miles to the north of this coast, it is probable 

 that they came from that island, I have heard of them nowhere 

 else."f 



* Mag. Nat. Hist. Vol. ix. p. 128. f Ibid. Vol. v. p 581. 



