THE LITTLE AUK. 
219 
Beggs, of Borris Castle, Borris-in-Ossory, — on the eastern borders 
of Queen's county ; — a place in the middle of the island, almost 
equally distant from the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. About 
the same time a specimen was picked up dead, but quite recent, 
on the strand, Dublin Bay. In October 1841, another of these 
birds, taken on a pond near Pilltown, county Kilkenny, along with 
some wigeon and teal, came into the possession of Dr. Burkitt of 
Waterford. Thus about the same time, the little Auk was 
obtained in three counties in the southern half of Ireland, a fact 
which immediately suggests its occurrence in unwonted numbers in 
England. By turning to Yarrell's work, we find (vol. iii. p. 359) 
that the species prevailed there to an extent never known before, 
having been met with that month, after a prevalence of storms 
from the N.N.E., over a great part of the coast from the county 
of York to Sussex. About, or soon after this time, numbers were 
also taken in the inland counties. On other occasions, this 
bird, like the stormy petrel, (though not so often,) has been 
found dead far inland in England, where it has also been observed, 
occasionally, on ponds. A pair of little auks were once seen in 
Cork harbour by Dr. J. B. Harvey. 
"Guillemots, common, black, and alba [alle*]” are mentioned 
by Colonel Sabine, in the Appendix to Ainsworth's Description of 
the Caves of Ballybunian, in Kerry, as having been seen there by 
him on wing in July 1833. Erom the bird being observed at this 
period of the year, we should like to be informed if it breeds there ; 
but it is not mentioned as doing so in the communications with 
which I have been favoured by the late Mr. T. E. Neligan of Tralee, 
or Mr. B. Chute of Blennerville, in that neighbourhood. The for- 
mer gentleman merely remarked (Eeb. 1837), that a specimen which 
he had seen was captured on a fresh-water lake, a quarter of a mile 
from the sea, near Yalentia; the latter obtained three or four in- 
dividuals on the coast of Kerry in the winter of 1842-43. 
A little auk, in adult summer plumage, was obtained either in 
Belfast or Strangford Lough, more probably in the former, on the 
* Having called the attention of Col. Sabine to the apparent misprint of alba 
for alle, he informed me that the latter was meant. 
