THE EEDSHANK. 
207 
With respect to inland locaKties_,—a gentleman observed a pair 
of redshanks on the 11th of May, 1845, in a swamp near Killa- 
gan, about half-way between Ballymena and Ballymoney (Antrim), 
and from the manner in which they flew at his dogs, he had no 
doubt of their having a nest near the spot. In the Bog of Allen, 
and near Monntainstown, county of Meath, they breed ; — as numbers 
do annually in moory swamps about Lough Conn, and on the banks 
of the river Mayo, in the county of that name."^ Mr. G, Jack- 
son (gamekeeper) has seen them about all the lakes and rivers 
he is acquainted with in Connaught ; — the upper Shannon and 
the tributaries of that river in the county of Eoscommon — the 
river Suck and the Moy in Mayo — also at Lough Gara, near the 
town of Boyle."’^ He saw ^‘^more or less of the young every 
year, from 1828 to 1840, particularly when fishing on the river 
Lung, the principal tributary to Lough Gara."’"’ I observed 
several redshanks on the banks of the river Shannon, between 
Limerick and Shannon harbour, on the last day of July, 1840, 
and imagined them to be indigenous birds which had been bred 
in some of the adjoining marshy tracts. 
Naturalists, treating of this species as a British bird, seem to 
consider that all the redshanks frequenting the shore are bred in 
the country. They describe it as on the coast in autumn and 
winter, and retiring inland to breed, without, in so far as I have 
observed, alluding to any migration northward of Great Britain 
for that purpose. Of the numbers, h-owever, that are on the 
Irish coast, the vast majority must have been brought up in more 
northern latitudes. 
A friend whose residence was on the banks of the tidal river 
Lagan, near Belfast, observed that for about a month in autumn 
(September), and then only, redshanks annually resorted to the 
oozy borders of the river above Ormeau Bridge when accessible 
at low water.f In autumn and winter they sometimes appeared 
about a tract of low-lying meadows near that town, when flooded by 
heavy rains, and on the shore of Lough Neagh I have seen flocks 
Mr. B. Ball. f On the 24th of December I once saw a few feeding here. 
