NOTES AND QUERIES. 111 
THE discussion between Mr. Robert Warren, our veteran sports- 
man and naturalist, and the Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain relative to the 
destruction of Ospreys has interested me. It commenced in the 
October number of the ‘ Zoologist’ by Mr. Warren stating he had a 
postcard from an egg-dealer in Leeds, who was anxious to dispose 
of, amongst other things, “ten Golden THagles’ eggs and fifty 
Ospreys’,” thus, says Mr. Warren, showing plainly why the Golden 
Hagles and Ospreys of Scotland are so steadily vanishing. Mr. 
Jourdain replied in the next number, rightly drawing attention to 
the increase of the Golden Hagle in Scotland—notwithstanding egg- 
collectors—and alleging that the Osprey is on the verge of extinction 
there “because of the wanton slaughter of the birds on migration 
through Ireland ’’—these barbarous murders being recorded in the 
pages of the ‘Irish Naturalist’—for he is ‘inclined to think” that 
Ospreys shot in England are “ generally” of Scandinavian origin ; 
and as to eggs, he will ‘‘undertake to say” there is not a single 
British-taken egg among the fifty duplicate eggs of which Mr. Warren 
writes, and complains that he has “looked in vain” for some words 
of reprobation from Irish naturalists of note when these murders are 
recorded, and winds up, ‘‘Cannot Iveland be content with the 
destruction of her own fauna without robbing Scotland as well?” 
This definite allegation of Mr. Jourdain, that the Scotch Ospreys 
are killed in Ireland, is still wholly unproved. May not Scandinavian 
Ospreys visit us as well as Woodcocks, Snipe, Snow Buntings, Rough- 
Legged Buzzards, &c.? and I submit that imaginary ‘‘ fly-lines”’ and 
probabilities are ‘“‘not good enough”’ to convince. 
What are the facts? Since 1892, twenty years ago, seven 
Ospreys have been recorded’ in the ‘Irish Naturalist’ as killed in 
Ireland; not one of these was killed in Ulster save the last, and 
that one on the borders of Connaught. In Ussher and Warren’s 
‘Birds of Ireland,’ attention ig drawn to the great preponderance of 
Munster records. Donegal is full of small lakes, and not a single 
_ Osprey has ever been seen there, nor in the adjoining co. Londonderry. 
Once only since 1892 has Lough Neagh, the largest sheet of water 
in the British Isles, been visited, and the distribution of the fifty-one 
Trish occurrences from 1832 up to 1900 is so remarkable that the 
authors of the ‘ Birds of Ireland’ suggest that the Osprey ‘chiefly 
arrives along the south-east coast and passes south-westwards.” I 
have devoted over thirty years to Irish bird migration, and do not 
believe in “ fly-lines,” unless supported by ample proof. Since 1832, 
eighty years ago, the Osprey has been met with in Ireland (but not 
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