T905. 



Notes. 



165 



Turnstones on Lough Neagh. 



While on Ram's Island, IvOugh Neagh, on May i8th, my attention was 

 attracted to a small flock of birds, two of which were strange to me. 

 They were flying with about four Dunlins {Tringa alpina). I got within 

 about twenty yards of them as they sat on a stone that was washed by 

 the small waves. They were Turnstones {Strepsilas inter pres), birds which 

 have never been found breeding yet in the United Kingdom. Mr. 

 Patterson tells me they were observed there about two years ago b3'him. 

 (See Irish Nat.. 1902, vol. xi., p. 22T.) 



K. L. L. M'Ci.iNTocK. 



Crumlin, Co. Antrim. 



Tufted Duck breeding on Lough Conn. 



I have the pleasure of noting that the Tufted Duck has extended its 

 breeding range to Lough Conn this season, where, a few days ago, my 

 friend Mr, S. Scroope observed several pairs of adult birds on the lake, 

 and found one nest containing eleven eggs. This is the first season that 

 they have been met with on this lake in summer. 



Robert Warren. 



Moyview, Ballina. 



Wild Cats formerly indigenous in Ireland. 



In reply to Mr. Warren's remarks in last month's Irish Naturalist, I think 

 few will agree with him in treating so lightlj' the discovery of semifossil 

 bones of a species of wild cat in a cave in the Co. Clare, though we ma}- 

 well concede that it is extremely unlikely that any now survive here. 

 Even if it were possible to prove a negative, the non-survival of any animal 

 would not in the slightest degree affect the question of its former 

 presence. I suppose we are all agreed that no I^emmings now survive 

 despite of the presence of their bones in a Sligo cave. Mr. Warren 

 discounts the old fisherman's story by a curious inversion of argument. 

 Seeing, he says, that in most parts of Ireland trapping is frequent, 

 and, so far as we know, has not resulted in Ihe capture of wild cats, there- 

 fore in a thinly populated mountain district where no traps are used, and 

 where cats are traditionally stated to have been numerous some 200 

 years since, feeding on fish, some remnants of the race may still exist. 

 So far I follow him, but fail to see his further inference that the story 

 must therefore be without foundation. To be sure, if any survive they 

 will long ago, as they have had to do elsewhere, have taken 

 to other food, for salmon and white trout are not now in such 

 vast abundance as we know they were in the rivers of the North 

 of Ireland even 150 5'ears ago. In 1776, at one haul of a net in the Bann, 

 1,452 salmon were landed. ^ I wonder, indeed, that a naturalist like Mr. 

 Warren does not grasp the verisimilitude of the story. The teeming 



1 " Notes on Nets," Hon. and Rev. Charles Bathurst. 



