Vlll 
PllEFACE. 
The following additional information, thought worthy of a 
place here, has been obtained while this volume was passing 
tlirough the press : — 
Ash-coloured Harrier. — Circus cineraceus^ Mont, (sp.) A 
second individual of this species (the first is noticed in vol. i. p. 427) 
was shot about the 1st of October, 1849, at the Scalp, county of 
Wicklow, and procured for the Dublin University Museum. The sto- 
mach of the bird contained the remains of frogs. Its sex was not 
looked to by the preserver, but judging from Jenyns’ description (p. 90), 
it is a female nearly in full adult plumage. To that description it is only 
necessary to add the following notes of the individual. Nape rufous- 
white; “above and below the eye, a streak of dull white;” wing- 
coverts with broad ferruginous markings. The tail-feathers generally 
have five bands of dark brown, alternating with which the central pair 
havejbm* bands of very dark greyish-brown, which colour prevails on 
the outer web of the feather next to them, but on its inner web these 
bands are rufous. This colour, but of a brighter tint, is exhibited 
throughout the same bands of the four outer tail-feathers on each side. 
Roller. — Coracias garrula, Linn. In addition to what appears at 
vol. i. p. 366, respecting this bird’s occurrence in Ireland, I have to 
state on the authority of the Earl of Courtown, that his gamekeeper 
shot one at Courtown, co. Wexford, on the 6th of October, 1849. The 
bird having been sent to Mr. Glennon, of Dublin, to be preserved, I 
was informed to that effect by Mr. Warren, and through the kindness 
of the nobleman just named, learned when and where it was obtained. 
The specimen is in nearly adult plumage. 
Black Grouse. — At p, 37, it is remarked that I had not heard of 
the success attendant on the introduction of six brace of these birds 
procured in Scotland by Lord Courtown’ s gamekeeper and turned 
out on his lordship’s estate in the south of Ireland. I have, however, 
through the polite attention of that nobleman, since learned that These 
birds remained (piiet in the wood in which they were set at liberty in 
