4ih February, igi2. 



Professor J. A. Lindsay, M.A., M.D , F.R.C.P., President, 

 in the Chair. 



RECENT ADVANCES IN IRISH ORNITHOLOGY." 



By Mr. Nkvin H. Foster, M.B.O.U. 



(Abstract.) 



Mr. Foster said that since the publication of the " Natural 

 History of Ireland" by William Thompson, one of the Society's 

 presidents, some fifty-four species of birds had been added to the 

 Irish list, this including all the rare stragglers which had been 

 obtained in Ireland. When the above work was published the 

 birds of prey were considered the most highly specialised birds, 

 and accordingly placed at the tcjp of the list, but since that time 

 it had been shown that this position must be accorded to the 

 sub-order of passerine, or perching birds. Of late years, too, a 

 revision of the systematic order of the families in this sub-order 

 had ousted the thrushes from their premier position, the crows 

 here supplanting them. This appeared only just, taking into 

 account the intelligence of these birds, which in proportion to 

 their size possess much greater brain capacity than obtains in any 

 other birds. The modern trend of ornithology points to the 

 insufficiency of merely a generic and specific name, it being 

 evident that racial or sub-specific distinctions are noticeable 

 between birds of a species inhabiting different regions, and 

 consequently most modern ornithologists have become adherents 

 of the trinominal system. It having been shown by Dr. Hartret 

 that in twenty-one species of birds the English examples could be 

 differentiated from the typical Contmental forms, it was not 

 therefore surprising that in three ot these our Irish specimens 



