1905. USSHKR. — Birds met with on Connaught Lakes. 127 



corroborates the semi-marine character of their bird-li fe. But, 

 to return to Lough Corrib; nowhere have I seen more 

 Mergansers, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in little bands. In 

 June the females may be found hatching on the islands of all 

 these Connaught lakes, and a favourite nesting-site is in a 

 rank bed of Meadow-sweet, through which the bird makes a 

 tortuous pass from the shore. As the Merganser feeds on fish, 

 it is not incommoded by the rocky nature of the bottom ; but 

 this does not seem to suit the Great Crested Grebe, a bird that 

 I failed to meet with on the larger lakes. I met with it, how- 

 ever, on lyough Hackett, a small lake near Headford, which 

 was mudd}', and grew flags or rushes. 



The islands of Lough Corrib are much resorted to by the 

 Common Sandpiper, and Dunlins are to be seen some- 

 times in unaccountable little flocks at the height of the breed- 

 ing-season, sometimes in pairs that seem to have nests. 



The Cormorant is to be seen in all directions, one prominent 

 rock, which formed a favourite perch, being well whitewashed. 

 A small colony of Cormorants used to nest (as Mr. Warren in- 

 forms us) on the ivy-covered walls of an isolated castle in Lough 

 Mask, until storms stripped off the ivy. I have described else- 

 where^ considerable colonies of Cormorants that nest on 

 the trees of lake-islands in Connaught ; and on Lough Tawny- 

 ard, in Mayo, I counted eighty nests on one side of such an 

 island, on which I found several Herons' nests in tall, straggling 

 Hollies in the interior of the thicket. 



Herons habitually build on Hollies, which often grow to a 

 great size, and on any low trees or bushes available, on the 

 islands of the moorland lakes of the West of Ireland from 

 Donegal to Kerry. In Connemara, a district of bogs and 

 granite mountains, the only attempts at a bush-growth (for one 

 cannot call this trees) is on the islands of the many lakes. 

 Here such species as the Merlin and Hooded Crow resort to 

 breed, and Wood-Pigeons are common. Mr. Witherby found 

 two nests of the latter on the ground among heather on an 

 island in Lough Corrib. This is not so surprising to me, when 

 I remember a Heron's nest on the stony brow of an islet in 

 Lough Ilion, Co. Donegal, and the nest of a Magpie but two 

 feet from the ground, not far from that of the Heron. 



^ Birds of Ireland, p. 153. 



