126 



The Irish Naturalist. 



June, 



at no great height ; its wings are often held slanting upwards. 

 The Hen Harrier was also common up to 1872, previously to 

 which it nested on several of the islands towards the north 

 end, but these were sought out and the birds shot. Of all 

 birds of prey the Harriers are the most easy to kill, from 

 their low, deliberate flight. 



Among the birds that people the numerous islands of Lough 

 Corrib, the Arctic Tern is most in evidence. Its colonies are 

 dispersed through the central portion of the lake, where a 

 boat is ever in danger of having its bottom pierced by a 

 sunken point of limestone. I have found some nests of 

 Common Tern among those of the Arctic. While both species 

 have been proved by Mr. Warren to breed on I^oughs 

 Mask and Carra, I understand that the proportion of 

 S' fliiviatilis is larger on those lakes. At a point in Lough 

 Corrib, fully eight miles from the Port of Galway, the nearest 

 sea, I saw a pair of I^ittle Terns fishing near an island, and 

 they seemed to be quite at home there. I could see iheir 

 white foreheads, as they were close to me. 



The Black-headed Gull has several colonies on the islands 

 of these lakes, but a more remarkable member of this family, 

 the Ivesser Black-headed Gull, breeds on many islands. I 

 have seen as many as four pairs at their nests on adjoining 

 islets or rocks at a shallow, dangerous part of I^ough Corrib, 

 where the site chosen was frequently under or in the midst 

 of a willow or other small bush that was open enough for 

 their large nest. Elsewhere on this lake, and on lyough 

 Mask, where islands are largely formed of huge bare boulders, 

 the single nest is placed among these; but on one island 

 that I have not visited, Mr. Warren found twenty nests of the 

 Lesser Black-backed Gull. He also found some scattered 

 ^ests of the Common Gull on the points and rocky islets of 

 lyough Mask, which seems to be the most inland breeding 

 resort of this bird in Ireland. It also nests on Lough Conn 

 and lyough CuUin, and on an island in the latter lake about 

 thirty pairs were breeding in 1894 (Warren). 



In Ireland the Common Gull chiefly frequents in the nuptial 

 season the small islets of freshwater lakes near the western 

 coasts of Donegal, Mayo, and Galway, and the fact that it 

 l^reeds on some of the great lakes of central Con naught 



