T9 



January, ii 



The President, Dr. Cunningham, in the Chair. 



Rev. George Robinson, Armagh, read a Paper on the 



OCCURRENCE OF RARE BIRDS AT LOUGH NEAGH 

 SINCE 1876. 



The reader mentioned, with special reference, seven rare birds 

 which had occurred at Lough Neagh since 1876. These were 

 — the Canada goose, the black tern, the pigmy curlew, the long- 

 tailed duck, the ruff, the eider duck, and the scoter duck. It 

 was at first supposed the Canada goose, which was observed on 

 the southern shore of the Lough in 1877, was an escape, but 

 that idea has since then been abandoned, and it is now 

 established that the Canada goose which occurred at Lough 

 Neagh was a truly wild bird. But a somewhat strange circum- 

 stance is that a wild goose has never been procured in that 

 district, and although wild geese have been often observed flying 

 over the Lough, they are never seen to alight, and he never 

 knew of one being shot on the southern shore. The black tern 

 is a very rare bird. It does not breed in Ireland, but it 

 occasionally occurs on our coast about the autumnal migration. 

 He had only seen one of them before, and that was a bird shot 

 at Plymouth. The pigmy curlew was observed in 1878. It 

 usually occurred on the seashore of Ireland and also in Eng- 

 land. The long-tailed duck was shot in a locality between 

 Portadown and the Lough, alongside the River Bann, where, 

 no doubt, it had been driven by stress of weather. The eider 

 duck was purchased by a gentleman in Armagh, who takes a 

 great interest in ornithology, (Mr. Templar,) from a woman 



