£12 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



them. A couple of Common Gulls occasionally joined them at the 

 poultry-trough, but not every day, for these visits were resented 

 by some of the Black-heads, who used to attack and drive them 

 off. Some of the Gulls were very weak, scarcely able to fly out 

 of the yard when disturbed, and from day to day I used to miss 

 out of the flock several well-marked individuals that had probably 

 died at night of cold and starvation. Some Blackbirds and 

 Thrushes, with a few Missel Thrushes, regularly fed at the 

 troughs until the thaw ; but two days after it set in, not a Gull 

 appeared in the yard. 



At Belleek Manor, near Ballina, over a hundred Gulls haunted 

 the terrace outside the hall- door, where they were fed regularly 

 during the frost, and so tame had they become as to take food 

 from the hand. The Fieldfares and Redwings mostly left this 

 part of the country after the frost set in, only a few Redwings 

 remaining about the thorn-hedges to eat the haws. In conse- 

 quence of there being no snow on the ground, the small birds 

 appeared to manage to obtain sufficient food, for none of them 

 were driven to seek food on the shore, as is usual in hard winters 

 in this locality. There was an immense migration of Wigeon in 

 the estuary, as if they were crowding in from the colder parts of 

 the country, and I remarked quite as many as in the severest 

 winters, such as 1878-79 and 1880-81 ; but, except on two or 

 three nights, the frost was not hard enough to drive the Wild 

 Ducks out of their inland haunts to the sea-coast, and in conse- 

 quence they were not seen in anything like the numbers observed 

 in the estuary during the winters mentioned. 



There was a great migration of Woodcocks to all the coverts, 

 and unusually heavy bags were made in Mayo, Sligo and Galway. 

 The White-fronted Geese were very numerous, and many were 

 trapped at the unfrozen springs where they fed. I saw several 

 hanging in a game-dealer's shop in Ballina that had all been 

 taken in the ordinary rabbit-traps; one was a young bird of the 

 year, in very dark plumage, not having a trace of white round 

 the base of the bill, nor any black marking on the breast, and 

 only for the colour of feet and bill was rather puzzling to identify. 

 Very few Swans were noticed passing across the country, though 

 I was told that eight or ten visited Lough Conn, and that larger 

 numbers were seen on the lakes in the Erris district. 



I was disappointed in not meeting with rare birds during the 



