I9i6. 
Notes. 
31 
Velvet Scoter on Lough Ree. 
On December 27 I shot, in Hodson's Bay, Lough Ree, County 
Roscommon, a black diving duck, which has been identified at the 
Dubhn Natural History Museum as an immature male Velvet Scoter 
{Oedemia fusca Linn.). I made the following notes from the bird while 
quite freshly killed : — Irides — very dark brown — nearly black (alive) ; 
beak, upper mandible — black, with greenish tinge near front, nail black ; 
lower mandible — black, with a semi -circular whitish mark like a " nail " 
at the end ; inside of mouth and tongue — white, including both mandibles ; 
legs and feet — dark flesh colour in front, behind black ; webs and claws — 
black. He looked quite black on the water, but the upper plumage has 
a brownish tinge and the breast is mottled with white. Speculum white. 
He dived off after being shot, and I had to pursue him for a long distance 
in a boat before getting a chance to finish him off. I believe he is being 
mounted for the Museum. These birds are occasionally seen on the lake, 
and are called " Black Divers." On ist August, 1914, I wounded and lost 
one on this lake when shooting ducks. It dived, and probably went into 
a patch of weeds, for I saw it no more. In Ussher and Warren's " Birds 
of Ireland " they say that about twenty records are known from along the 
coasts, nearly all from the east coast. They do not say anything about 
their being found on inland loughs. 
J. FFOLLIOTT DaRLING. 
The Bay, Athlone. 
This duck is a rare winter visitor to Ireland, chiefly to the bays of 
the East coast, but usually keeping out to sea. Mr. Ussher in his 
" List of Irish Birds," refers to a specimen having been obtained on 
Lough Ennell in Westmeath ; its occurrence inland however is quite 
exceptional, probably due to having been blown in by storms. 
A. R. Nichols. 
National Museum, Dublin. 
Rooks nesting near the Ground. 
In the December Irish Naturalist (vol. xxiv., p. 217) Mr. Praeger refers 
to nests of Rooks being only fifteen feet from the ground at a place in 
Co. Wicklow, but if he were to visit a certain small island on Lough Fern, 
in Co. Donegal, covered with little more than bushes, he could obtain 
Rooks' eggs in the season without having to climb for them at all, provided 
the bushes are still as they were some years ago, and the Rooks still nesting 
in them. 
Geo. Brown Crawford. 
Rathgar, Dublin, 
