Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 229 



with about the streams and rivers of the lower grounds, and occa- 

 sionally about the estuary of Belfast-bay. A couple of them were 

 remarked by my observant friend Mr. James Garrett, throughout 

 the month of January 1836, to frequent the river Lagan where sub- 

 ject to the flow of the tide, and he has known them in pursuit of 

 food to be immersed for a few seconds beneath' the surface of the 

 water ; about another river where it enters the bay, three or four 

 have been seen in company : in shallow pools of sea- water this bird 

 has been remarked at ebb-tide fishing in its most picturesque man- 

 ner — suspended above the water, and darting down upon its prey. 

 This mode must necessarily have been resorted to here, where there 

 was no branch of a tree or perch from which the bird could be on 

 the look-out ; but on rivers with wooded banks it occasionally fishes 

 in the same manner. My brother notes his having seen the king- 

 fisher dart down upon its prey from a branch fully six feet above the 

 water. I remember being once entertained by observing one of 

 these birds perched on a branch overhanging a pond, and about a 

 foot above it, whilst trout, one and all too large for its mastery, kept 

 leaping up immediately beneath as if in defiance of their enemy. A 

 gentleman once informed me, that beside the nest of a kingfisher 

 he had found the perfect skeleton of a fish, which induced him 

 to believe that the bird does not swallow the fish whole, but picks 

 the flesh off. That such however is not the case, the stomachs of 

 the few — six in number — which I have myself examined, sufficiently 

 attested, as they all contained fish-bones, and these only. The two 

 before alluded to as frequenting the Lagan within flow of the tide in 

 January 1836, fell victims to the gun at the end of that month, and 

 were found on dissection to have their stomachs filled with " shrimps " 

 about an inch in length. 



In the winter of 1830-31, a bird-preserver in Belfast received so 

 many as seven kingfishers in the course of a month — of these, three 

 were shot at the Lagan*, one near Downpatrick, and two or three 

 at the Six-mile Water, a fine clear trout stream, and one of the tri- 

 butaries of Lough Neagh. Within about a month on another occa- 

 sion, from the middle of October to that of November, I saw seven 

 of these birds which had been sent to taxidermists in the town just 

 mentioned — of these one was from the last-named river, as were 

 single specimens from the Inver, at Larne, and the Milewater, in the 

 county of Antrim; one from Killileagh (co. Down), and three from 

 Coleraine (co. Londonderry). Mr. R. Davis, Jun., of Clonmel, has 

 informed me, that during one week in January 1841, he received 

 six examples of this bird — the extreme cold of that month will be 

 rememberedf. All these are remarkable cases. 



* On the 21st September, 1833, kingfishers were said to be plentiful 

 about this river ; four were seen together on a bank of gravel, and on being 

 frightened away flew in company up the stream ; about a mile below where 

 they were first seen, my informant proceeding onwards saw two more : for 

 so many to appear within so limited a space is extraordinary. 



f " In severe winters they sometimes become so tame that they even 

 venture within a few feet of the door of Bathgate Mill, which is situated in 

 the immediate vicinity of houses." Mr. Weir in Macgillivray's Brit. Birds, 

 vol. hi. p. 679. 



