90 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
Mr. J. B. Doyle observed that two instances illustrative of peculiarities 
in the habits of the starling had come under his notice. "When in Wick- 
low some years since, shooting, in the latter end of August, between 
"Wicklow and Seapark, in a cover adjacent to the sea, his attention was 
attracted by an unusual noise and chattering, which, on emerging on the 
strand, he found to proceed from an enormous multitude of starlings con¬ 
gregated in the trees, evidently having just arrived in migration; it ap¬ 
peared, however, that this was an unusually early migration of these 
birds. The other instance had reference to the fact that the starlings do 
not confine themselves to the one kind of roosting ground. At Dunran, 
county of Wicklow, they roost in old ruins. In 1839, after the great 
storm, at Mr. Templeton’s, Waterton Demesne, he saw numbers of them 
dead and wounded among the trees, killed by the clashing of the boughs 
against one another. On inquiry he found that the beech trees there 
were their usual roosting-place. 
The Chairman then declared the following duly ^elected:— 
Ordinary Members:—Joseph Beay Greene, Professor, Queen’s 
College, Cork; George Dixon, Esq., Dublin; William Hodges, Esq., 
Bathgar. 
Corresponding Member:—The Bev. Bobert Harvey, Leek Glebe, 
Letterkenny. 
The Society then adjourned till the 5th of Eebruary. 
FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 5, 1858. 
Professor W. H. Harvey, M.D., M.B.I.A., F.L. S., President, 
in the Chair. 
Mr. William Andrews, Honorary Secretary, read the follow¬ 
ing— 
NOTES ON THE CAPTURE OF A MUTE SWAN (CYGNUS OLOR) IN DUNDALK BAY. 
BY LORD CLERMONT. 
The mute swan, which I have the pleasure of presenting to the Dublin 
Hatural History Society, is interesting from having been taken under 
circumstances which favour the supposition that these birds occasionally 
visit our shores in a truly wild state. It was shot on the 27th of Ee¬ 
bruary, 1857, in Dundalk Bay, about a mile from the land, out of a flock 
of six, by a fisherman in my employment, who observed the swans flying 
over the sea, and alighting on it. He then put off in a boat, and suc¬ 
ceeded in getting within shot of the flock. All the birds had, he said, 
some brown plumage. 
The fact of these birds being strong on the wing, and coming in 
from seaward, does not look like birds reared on a lake or river. There 
have been flocks seen in Belfast and Strangford Loughs each winter now 
