NOTES AND QUERIES. 353 



Dungloe, on the Donegal coast. From information received from Col. 

 Cooper, of Markree Castle, Co. Sligo, a few years ago, it is not improbable 

 that a pair of Red-throated Divers bred and reared a young one on Lough 

 Ersk, in the Ox Mountains, Co. Sligo. His keeper told him that a pair of 

 Barnacles with a young one were seen on the lake during the summer (I 

 think it was in July he mentioned the fact to Col. Cooper, who ordered him 

 to keep a sharp look out after them) ; and when, some weeks after, the 

 Colonel asked about the birds, the keeper said they had disappeared, and 

 thought they had left the lake by the river running to the sea at Easky. 

 On Col. Cooper questioning the man, he was most positive the birds were 

 Barnacles, from their size and dark colour ; but as it was impossible they 

 could be geese of any kind, the size and colour of the birds, the solitary 

 young one, and the fact of this Diver breeding on the Donegal lakes, lead 

 to no other conclusion but that the birds were Red-throated Divers ; the 

 little lake being just the place one would expect to find a pair of Divers 

 haunting, being situated in the heart of the mountains, about five miles 

 from Lough Talt, and most secluded. — Robert Warren (Moyview, 

 Ballina, Co. Mayo). 



Black Stork in the Scilly Islands.— I have lately seen in the hands 

 of Mr. Burton, of Wardour Street, for preservation, a remarkably good 

 specimen of the Black Stork, Ciconia nigra, which was shot by Mr. Dorien 

 Smith, on Tresco, on the 7th of May last,— in oblivion, as we may suppose, 

 of the existence of the • Wild Birds Protection Act.' It is to be regretted, 

 however, that the Lord-proprietor of the Isles did not set a better example 

 by protecting such a rare feathered visitor to this much-favoured part of the 

 British Islands. — J. E. Harting. 



Breeding of the Woodcock in Ireland.— Though I have never met 

 with so late a nest of Woodcock as that recorded by my friend Mr. Flemyng 

 (p. 312), I have a clutch of four eggs taken on June 7th which were fresh. 

 The finder told me that he knew of a considerably later nest of eggs 

 having been found last year, by persons who were picking bilberries. 

 Although Woodcocks usually lay here about the beginning of April, or even 

 at the end of March, yet I have known of eggs having been found, more 

 than once, at the beginning of May. Within the last twenty years there 

 has been unquestionably a large increase in the numbers of Woodcocks 

 remaining to breed in Ireland ; as in the woods at Glenstal, and reported 

 by Mr. Pentland in ' The Field ' of Sept. 28th, 1889. I have noted nume- 

 rous proofs that this has been the case within the last seven years in the 

 Co. Waterford, wherever the woods are undisturbed, and I can now reckon 

 on seeing Woodcocks in the evening about my plantations from April until 

 July. Though the flight is slow, the vibration of the wings is rapid on . 

 such occasions, and the birds seem to fly over a certain beat and return 



ZOOLOGIST. — SEPT. 1890. 2D 



