270 
LARID/E. 
More recent information has led to the belief that the species 
might breed on that coast, and more especially the fact that Mr. 
Warren has seen or known the bird to be about Portmarnock or 
Malahide every year (now summer 1850) in June and July since 
the time he first met with it. About the 15th of June, 1850, 
one was shot and two others were seen at the island of Ire- 
land^ Eye. On the 17th of July, 1850, as mentioned under 
the Roseate Tern, Mr. Watters visited the Rockabill, a small 
rocky islet well known as a breeding -haunt of some of the more 
common terns, and saw there three of the Sandwich species, 
and found one of their eggs. The only tern he saw perched on 
the island was one of these. On his remarking to the boatmen 
how scarce they were, they said that the large skirrs * fly daily in- 
land to feed on fresh-water fishes in the small streams, and return 
to the rock at night ! The birds alluded to as shot along the sea- 
coast (and there only, so far as I have heard) have probably been 
wanderers from this rock, including some seen in Drogheda Bay 
on the 2nd and 3rd of August, 1850. t Mr. Watters remarks, 
that “ as we often from the land observe the swallows and mar- 
tins flying low, while the swift is screaming at a great height, so 
the roseate, common, and arctic terns showed little timidity; but 
the large Sandwich species kept at a great distance, screaming 
loudly. Its flight is exceedingly beautiful, outrivalling even that 
of the buoyant Eoseate, by its sudden turns and rapidity.” 
The preceding information respecting the breeding-haunt of 
the Sandwich tern, on the coast of Ireland, is all that can now 
be given, and from the limited number of birds seen at any 
period in that quarter, but few, I presume, have ever bred on 
the island. The bird is of more frequent occurrence both in 
England and Scotland than in Ireland, where my present informa- 
tion respecting it, is confined to the eastern coast. Mr. Selby 
giveg an interesting account of the bird at its breeding-islets off 
* Shirr simply is applied here to the species of ordinary size — the roseate, com- 
mon, and arctic terns. 
f By Mr. R. J. Montgomery. 
