112 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
always killed!) about sixty times, of which only nine were in Ulster— 
across which province it might naturally be expected to travel on its 
way to and from the Scotch Highlands to Munster, where it has 
been seen on about thirty-three occasions. Under these circum- 
stances I think Mr. Jourdain builds rather a large edifice on proba- 
bility, for nobody can tell where the Irish Ospreys come from, and 
consequently to accuse Irishmen of destroying Scotch Ospreys is 
unfair. As to eggs—can we be sure that none were taken in Scot- 
land since 1892? <A clutch usually consists (fide Dresser) of three 
eggs—two clutches might produce six birds; what a tremendous 
weapon for destroying rare species is this clutch-collecting, for it 
kills three at a time! The high price of British-taken eggs is the 
strongest inducement an adventurous dealer has to possess them. 
And how can anyone “‘ undertake to say’’ that there is not a single 
British-taken specimen among the fifty Ospreys’ eggs advertised in 
Leeds? At the annual meeting, held on 19th of last month, of the 
Irish Society for the Protection of Birds, at which I had the honour 
to preside, attention was drawn in the Report to the killing of 
Ospreys, and members were impressed with the desirability of pre- 
venting their destruction. In the ‘ Zoologist’ for 1907, Mr. Williams 
expresses regret that such harmless birds should be killed. Seven 
are recorded as shot within twenty years in the ‘Irish Naturalist,’ 
and I have to thank Mr. Jourdain for the 1907 record, which is 
omitted from my index just published to eighteen volumes of that 
journal, as the reference appeared under another heading. It first 
appeared (like the 1908 occurrences) in the ‘ Zoologist,’ and the 1895 
record is copied from ‘ Land and Water.’ 
Mr. Warren and the Rev. F.C. R. Jourdain are excellent ornitho- 
logists, and both alike lament the possible extinction of these 
splendid and attractive birds from Scotland; but let not this crime 
be attributed to Irishmen more than to Englishmen or Scotchmen 
on conjectural evidence and without comparative statistics, and let 
us praise rather than blame the editors of the ‘Irish Naturalist,’ 
‘Zoologist,’ &c., for the records given, as they enable us to realize 
what is happening, which is the first step to prevention —RIcHARD 
M. Barrineton (Fassaroe, Bray, co. Wicklow). 
I HAVE only shortly to say that with every word the Rey. I’. C. R. 
Jourdain has written (Zool., Feb. 1912, pp. 74-77) I am in perfect 
accord. For the better part of fifty years I have been intimately 
acquainted with our Scottish air-fauna. I have for at least twenty- 
five years assiduously collected every item—any smallest scrap—l 
