84 



The Irish Naturalist, 



May, 



to show that this species has ceased doing so. It is very 

 Ukely indeed tliat it nests in snuill numbers on some of the 

 islands or islets off the north coast of Ireland adjacent to 

 the Scottish nesting -quarters. \Mien this can be pro\'ed, 

 the status of the bird will then be : Resident ^ in very small 

 numbers in the north or north-eastern coastlands of Ireland, 

 the numbers being augmented by migrants probably every 

 autumn, and winter, To the other provinces of Ireland 

 this duck may still be designated as a rare and an un- 

 certain visitor, appearing mainly in the cold months of 

 the year. 



The University, Sheffield. 



IRISH SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Reeent gifts include a number of frish birds from ^Ir. \V. VV. Despard. 

 A pair of Wolves have been received in exchange. The greater number 

 of the Salmon and Trout eggs received in J)ecember have been successfully 

 reared through the larval stage, and thousands of fry may now be seen in 

 the Hatchery boxes. Some account of an interesting disease that has 

 lately troubled the Gorilla is given on the next page in the proceedings 

 of the Dublin Microscopical Club. 



^ It has become somcAvhat customary to apply the term " resident " 

 to a species which breeds and is also found in the country at other times 

 of the year. But here it does not follow that individual birds which 

 breed remain. For example, many Song -Thrushes, Blackbirds, and other 

 well-known birds which breed in Ireland, migrate, though certainly not 

 all of them. The term " resident " is, however, not applied to a species 

 which breeds with us, when none of its individuals remain after the nesting 

 duties are finished, e.g., Swallow, Willow -Warbler, Cuckoo, cVc. And 

 yet the latter in a very cogent sense are to be regarded as " residents " 

 Avhich are only obliged to move off in winter in search of food, but which 

 return annually, with great punctuality and with not only patriotic 

 but even parochial interests to their residential sites, that is, to their 

 breeding homes. In the restricted sense of the term, the "resident"' 

 birds- — that is to say, the purely stationary species, as the Jay and Dipper, 

 also the stationary individuals of migratory species, as the Skylark, 

 Blackbird, and Song -Thrush — are in our latitudes very much in the 

 minority. 



