34 
The Irish Naturalist. 
March, 
An early friendship was fornied with Dr. J. R. Harvey, 
author of the Fauna of Cork, to whom he often reported 
visits (sometimes sending specimens also) of the rarer birds 
that came under his notice. More important was the 
beginning of his correspondence with William Thompson, 
whose work on the natural history of Ireland was still in 
course of preparation. Warren in later years used to like 
relating how Thompson, seeing him look with evident 
interest at some specimens of gulls in Belfast Museum — 
this was during a visit to his cousins, the Taylors, who 
lived in College Square, Belfast, and probably in 1846 — 
entered at once into conversation, pointing out to him 
the easiest method of distinguishing at sight the Glaucous 
and Iceland Gulls from any of the common species frequen- 
ting the Irish coast. It was a peculiarly happy lesson, as 
Warren was destined to add so much to our knowledge of 
the visits of these two species, then believed to be so rare. 
His first meeting with the Iceland Gull was in January, 
1849, when he and his brother noticed in Cork Harbour 
some gulls that they at once recognised to be of one of the 
wished-for species, and after much perseverance a specimen 
was secured in time to be recorded in Thompson's work as 
the fourth Iceland Gull obtained in Ireland. 
Among other records for which Thompson was indebted 
to his young correspondent was that of the Alpine Swift 
{Cypselus melha) shot at Doneraile in 1844 or 1845 — the 
third Irish occurrence. Very little of their correspondence, 
however, referred to such occasional stragglers. Thompson 
soon came to place his chief reliance on Warren for full 
information touching the birds of the southern coast, their 
breeding-places, respective numbers, migrations, and general 
habits. In many of his letters (kindly lent by Miss Warren 
for the purposes of this memoir), the elder naturalist shows 
his appreciation of the help he had received by pressing for 
still more frequent communications. " I hope," he writes 
on May 3rd, 1849, " '^Y acknowledging receipt of your 
letter of 7th March has not prevented your communicating 
any information to me. As long as I am kept continuously 
occupied preparing matter on the Birds of Ireland for the 
press, I expect that ornithologists will absolve me from 
