g2o 



Review. 



published in 1894 ; and in the general list of Irish papers, for which 

 Mr. Swann is presumably answerable, a startling omission is made of 

 Mt. llssher's important article on the " Breeding Range of Irish Birds," 

 contributed to the Royal Irish Academy's Proceedings in 1893. It would 

 be impossible to fmd omissions comparable to these in any of the county 

 lists drawn up by either Mr. Carroll or Mr. Foster. But apart from 

 -uch manifest faults, it is clear that Mr. Swann follows a much more 

 limited rule of choice than either of his coadjutors. He limits himself 

 to papers that record facts of some distributional value, while articles 

 dealing with habits or other peculiarities are admitted both by Mr. 

 Carroll and by Mr. Foster in their lists for those counties in which the 

 observations recorded were made. This leads to curiously contradictory 

 results. Of two papers dealing with the same subject (the feeding habits 

 of the Crossbill) contributed almost simultaneously to this Journal in 

 1 916, one, as coming from an Ulster county, falls into Mr. Foster's 

 jurisdiction and is admitted, while the other, from a Leinster county, falls 

 into Mr. Swann's, and so is left out. Readers of the Irish Naturalist 

 would expect, too, that a local contribution to the " luminous owl " 

 controversy like that written by Miss Mildred Dobbs on the strength of 

 her observations in Co. Waterford in 191 1, might claim a place in the 

 bibliography for that county ; and had Miss Dobbs's observations been 

 made on the Foyle instead of on the Blackwater the expectation would 

 certainly have been gratified. It is about equally certain that Mr. 

 Burkitt's excellent articles on the habits of the Whitethroat, Nightjar, 

 Long-eared Owl, &c., written for this Journal in 1916 and 19 17, would 

 have been left unnoticed in the bibliography had the observations on 

 which they are based been made in Co. Wicklow instead of Co. Fermanagh. 

 No papers on similar lines have been admitted by Mr. Swann. 



It will be seen that Irish ornithologists who consult this work must 

 expect to meet with very different degrees of success, according to the 

 part of the country on which their interest is centred. The preparation 

 of the work has involved such an immense amount of labour that it is 

 disappointing to find the result so marred by want of forethought. But 

 the quantity of information given is sufficiently great to console us largely 

 for the considerable amount withheld. 



IRISH SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Recent gifts include a While Rat from Miss Betty White, a Raven 

 from Miss Shackleton, a Carrier Pigeon from Mrs. Harris, six Vipers 

 from W. Chichester, some Roach and Crayfish from J. O'Callaghan. 

 Three Sebastopol Geese have been acquired in exchange. Scrub and 

 Swamp W'allabys have been purchased, and three Lion cubs have been 

 born, the parents being " Oseni " and " Sheila.'' 



