THE BELTED KINGFISHER. 
373 
of Clonmel, received six of these birds ; the extreme cold of that 
month will be remembered.* All these are remarkable cases. 
My friend Richard Langtry, Esq., when grouse-shooting at 
Aberarder, in Inverness-shire, in the season of 1840, met with a 
kingfisher several times, from the middle to the end of September, 
about a wild mountain-rivulet at a considerable elevation, whose 
banks were destitute of wood or any cover. In the middle of 
August I once saw three of these birds in company at the Pontine 
marshes between Rome and Naples. 
Mr. Waterton, in his Essays on Natural History, treats of the 
kingfisher in a most pleasing manner. 
BELTED KINGFISHER. 
Alcedo alcyon , Linn. 
Two individuals of this species have been met with about 
the same period. 
They were thus noticed in a communication which I made to the An- 
nals of Natural History, for December, 1845. “ I have the pleasure 
to record the occurrence of this North American bird in Ireland; 
a specimen (as I learn by letter from T. W. Warren, Esq., of 
Dublin, dated Nov. 21, 1845,) having been shot by Frederick A. 
Smith, Esq., at Annsbrook, county of Meath, on the 26th of 
October last. It has fortunately been preserved, and on being 
shown to Mr. R. Ball, was identified as A. Alcyon : this gentle- 
man considers that the full strong plumage of the specimen de- 
notes a truly wild bird, and not an individual that had escaped 
from confinement. According to the descriptions of Wilson and 
Richardson, it is a female, and not, at all events, in younger 
plumage, than that of the second year. Mr. Warren adds, 
that when at the shop of Mr. Glennon, the well-known bird- 
preserver, on the day before the date of his letter, the game- 
keeper of Mr. Latouche of Luggela, county of Wicklow, called 
to mention that he had, within the last few days, seen a very large 
kingfisher, at a stream connecting the lake of Luggela with 
* “In severe winters, they sometimes become so tame, that they even venture 
within a few feet of the door of Bathgate Mill, which is situated in the immediate 
vicinity of houses Mr. Weir in Macgillvray’s Brit. Birds, vol. iii. p. 679. 
