324 
HALLIDiE. 
been within the island. They are more or less plentiful, too, in 
different years — in the winter of 1834, they were particularly 
numerous, and killed by all our sportsmen (to whom from their 
mode of flight they prove the easiest of shots) : a few were also 
daily to be seen exposed with other birds for sale in the shops of 
Belfast. Within the first week of January 1841, Mr. J. R. Garrett 
saw many about Clough, and not less than a dozen in the 
course of a day.* The greatest number that has occurred during 
one day in Down and Antrim, to another sporting friend (who 
has had excellent opportunities of meeting with them) was 
six, which he saw in the King^s Moss (Antrim) on the 20th of 
September, 1836. Burther, the species was known only to my 
correspondents in the north-west of Donegal,! the neighbour- 
hood of Dublin,! and county of Kerry, [j as an autumnal or winter 
visitant.^ 
The first of these birds that fell to my own gun when 1 was a 
juvenile shooter, did so under singular circumstances. I had fired 
at a snipe on Holywood warren, Avounded (as was imagined), 
and marked it down. On walking towards the spot where it 
pitched or fell, and looking cautiously about when within a near 
shot of the place, I saw a bird at the edge of a little plashy 
spot, bleeding apparently at the biU, which was concluded to be 
the dying snipe. Lest it shoidd escape again, 1 fired at the bird 
on the ground, and to my amazement on going to the spot, the 
victim appeared in the shape of a water-rail, a species which I 
had never before seen, and the natural redness of whose bill led 
me to believe it was that of the snipe covered with blood. The 
snipe could not again be sprung, and probably had dropped 
dead. At all events it was the innocent cause of the death of 
the water-rail. 
* They are common in the same haunts here at all seasons of the year. 
f Mr. J. V. Stewart. X J* Montgomery. || Mr. T. T. Neligan. 
^ In the island of Islay; Scotland, it is known only to the keeper as a bird regu- 
larly seen in winter. I do not, however, take it for granted in any of these instances, 
that the species is in the locality only at the seasons named. In autumn and winter 
alone will it come under the direct notice of the sportsman. 
