1905. 



Notes. 



135 



Unnecessary Bird Killing. 



I do not think that Mr. Nevin H. Foster's protest, under the above 

 heading (p. 96), against the killing ot a Glaucous Gull is altogether called 

 for. This species runs no risk of having its numbers seriously, or even 

 appreciably, reduced by the shooting of individuals that have straggled 

 in winter to spots so far away from their breeding quarters as Ireland ; 

 and though it may be pleasanter to read of their being spared than 

 killed, it might surely be left to a trained naturalist and life-long student 

 of the Gull family like Mr. Warren, to judge for himself how many 

 specimens it would be desirable for him to secure. In the case of the 

 Glaucous Gull, and, indeed, of most Gulls, a very considerable number 

 would be necessary to illustrate the different phases of plumage : and it 

 is impossible to lay down a satisfactory hard-and-fast rule as to where 

 the line should be drawn. 



C. B. Moffat. 



Dublin. 



Iceland Gull in the Moy Estuary. 



I have been much amused by Mr. Nevin H. Foster's attack on me in 

 the April number of the Irish Naturalist, for shooting the Glaucous Gull 

 recorded in the March number. I now have the pleasure of informing 

 him, and other naturalists, that on April the 26th, I shot a very 

 fine specimen of the Iceland Gull as it was swimming in the water 

 near one of my fields here, in company of a young Herring Gull. It is 

 very white in colour, being in the last season's stage of the immature 

 plumage, this very peculiar white colour being common to both the 

 Glaucous and Iceland Gulls of the same age. Its dimensions were : — 

 I^ength, 2ii inches ; carpus, 16 inches ; tarsus, 2 inches ; while its closed 

 wings extended 2^ inches beyond the end of the tail feathers. 



Robert Warren. 



Moyview, Ballina, 



Supposed Wild Cat in Ireland. 



I do not expect that Dr. Scharff will ever succeed in obtaining an Irish 

 killed specimen of a Wild Cat, no more than one of Mustela vulgaris : 

 though quite as grave statements of captures have been made from time 

 to time, yet up to the present no specimen has been produced of either 

 animal for inspection by competent naturalists. 



Mr. Thompson never got one, neither did Dr. Ball nor Dr. Harvey, and 

 we thus have our three greatest Irish naturalists of the north, middle, 

 and south of Ireland, never seeing or obtaining a specimen of either 

 animal during their long years of enquiry and observation. 



