fore, to find that this bird is not only equally common in the south as in the north of Ireland; but that it nidifies as frequently on the rocky coasts of the former as on those of the latter portion of the island.

ITs occurrence in Ireland was noticed in a communication which I made to the Zoological Society of London (Proceedings Z. S. 1834, p. 30), after having seen a specimen, which was shot at Wexford on the 26th of December, 1831, in the collection of Dr. R. Graves of Dublin. I have since learned that the species was obtained in that quarter long before the period mentioned. According to an entry in an old Donation-book of Trinity College Museum (supplied to me by Mr. R. Ball), it appears that the Rev. J. Elgee, of Wexford, "presented a bird, called the little auk or little diver (Penn. 233), driven on the coast of Wexford by the storms of January 1791."-The specimen is not now extant, but the reference to "Pennant, 233," evinces the correct application of the name to this species. In March 1834, I was informed by Mr. Glennon, that in the course of his "practice. as a bird-preserver, two recent examples of the little auk had been sent to him, the one killed at Wexford, the other at Baldoyle, near Dublin. On the 5th of December, 1835, one of these birds was found dead, but in a perfectly fresh state, at Portmarnock strand, some miles from that city. A letter from Mr. T. W. Warren, dated October 16, 1841, announced that he saw on that day at Glennon's shop three little auks, which were shot by Mr.

Beggs, of Borris Castle, Borris-in-Ossory,-on the eastern borders of Queen's county;-a place in the middle of the island, almost equally distant from the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. About the same time a specimen was picked up dead, but quite recent, on the strand, Dublin Bay. In October 1841, another of these birds, taken on a pond near Pilltown, county Kilkenny, along with some wigeon and teal, came into the possession of Dr. Burkitt of Waterford. Thus about the same time, the little Auk was obtained in three counties in the southern half of Ireland, a fact which immediately suggests its occurrence in unwonted numbers in England. By turning to Yarrell's work, we find (vol. iii. p. 359) that the species prevailed there to an extent never known before, having been met with that month, after a prevalence of storms from the N.N.E., over a great part of the coast from the county of York to Sussex. About, or soon after this time, numbers were also taken in the inland counties. On other occasions, this bird, like the stormy petrel, (though not so often,) has been found dead far inland in England, where it has also been observed, occasionally, on ponds. A pair of little auks were once seen in Cork harbour by Dr. J. R. Harvey.

"Guillemots, common, black, and alba [alle*]," are mentioned by Colonel Sabine, in the Appendix to Ainsworth's Description of the Caves of Ballybunian, in Kerry, as having been seen there by him on wing in July 1833. From the bird being observed at this period of the year, we should like to be informed if it breeds there; but it is not mentioned as doing so in the communications with which I have been favoured by the late Mr. T. F. Neligan of Tralee, or Mr. R. Chute of Blennerville, in that neighbourhood. The former gentleman merely remarked (Feb. 1837), that a specimen which he had seen was captured on a fresh-water lake, a quarter of a mile from the sea, near Valentia; the latter obtained three or four individuals on the coast of Kerry in the winter of 1842-43.

A little auk, in adult summer plumage, was obtained either in Belfast or Strangford Lough, more probably in the former, on the

* Having called the attention of Col. Sabine to the apparent misprint of alba for alle, he informed me that the latter was meant.

22nd of May, 1846.* In connection with the occurrence of the bird at this season of the year, it may be mentioned that Mr. Darragh (of the Belfast Museum) when paying an ornithological visit to the Craig of Ailsa, off the coast of Ayrshire, on the 19th of May, 1849, saw four little auks. "One of them remained on the water at the base of the Craig until approached by the boat, within about eighty yards, when it flew off in the direction which its three companions had taken a minute before." Their being seen at this fine breeding-haunt of "rock-birds," inclusive of the gannet, in the middle of May, suggests the probability of their nesting here; though the species is not positively known to do so on any part of the Scottish coast. At St. Abb's Head it has been said to breed. It is generally regarded as only a winter visitant to the British Islands.‡

It will have been remembered by ornithologists in connection with Colonel Sabine's statement of seeing this bird on the coast of Kerry, that he was particularly well acquainted with the little auk. In his Memoir on the Birds of Greenland,' published in the twelfth volume of the Transactions of the Linnæan Society, he observes that it "was abundant in Baffin's Bay and Davis's Straits; and in latitude 76° was so numerous in the channels of water separating fields of ice that many hundreds were killed daily, and the ship's company supplied with them" (p. 537). Capt. Beechey, in his account of the voyage towards the North Pole in 1815, while describing the scenery of Magdalena Bay, a commodious inlet on the western side of Spitzbergen, remarks,— "At the head of the bay there is a high pyramidal mountain of granite, termed Rotge Hill, from the myriads of small birds of that name which frequent its base, and appear to prefer its environs to any part of the harbour. They are so numerous that we

* Mr. R. J. Montgomery mentions two birds as shot near Howth some years ago, and one individual having been seen by him in the river Boyne, near Drogheda, in the winter of 1849-50.

+ Mr. Macgillivray was informed to that effect. Manual of Brit. Birds,' vol. ii. p. 215.

Yarrell, &c.

have frequently seen an uninterrupted line of them, extending full half-way over the bay, or to a distance of more than three miles, and so close together that thirty have fallen at one shot. This living column, on an average, might have been about six yards broad and as many deep. There must have been nearly four millions of birds on wing at one time." These extracts show that the individuals occurring in the British seas are mere stragglers from "high quarters."

Audubon gives a very pleasing account of this species, as observed during his voyages across the Atlantic. Orn. Biog.' vol. iv. p. 304.

The following note was received too late to be printed in its proper place, at p. 208 :-"Guillemots and razorbills breed in considerable numbers in holes at inaccessible parts of the cliffs between the Reannies and Sovereign Islands on the coast of Cork. The former are much more numerous than the latter, and flock more together. About fifty feet above the water at Reannie Bay there is a small cave in the perpendicular cliff, three or four feet in diameter, out of which thirty or forty guillemots commonly fly when a shot is fired from a boat."*

Is a regular summer visitant to each side of the island.

The islets called the Maiden's or Hulin rocks, off the entrance to

* Mr. R. Warren, jun.

† Tammie Norrie, provincially in Scotland. By this name it is alluded to by Sir Walter Scott in the grand scene in the Antiquary,' in which the baronet and his daughter are near being lost upon the sea-coast.

Larne Harbour, county Antrim, are said to have been resorted to by numbers of these birds, annually, for the purpose of breeding, until of late years, when, owing to the erection of lighthouses, the puffins ceased to visit them.* One of the names by which they were known there, and at the Gobbins, where they occasionally appeared, was Ailsa-cock, an appellation applied to them in the south-west of Scotland, and derived from their haunt on the Ayrshire coast.† Dr. J. D. Marshall, who visited the island of Rathlin, off the Giant's Causeway, in June 1834, informs us that "These birds breed in great numbers at the Bull Point and headlands adjoining, where the rocks are based with mould, and intersected and covered here and there with patches of grass; thus affording them facilities for scooping out their nests. These we found wherever the earth appeared among the rocks. They excavate or burrow in the mould to the depth of two or three feet; and, at the extremity of the excavation, the egg, which is white and about the size of a hen's, is deposited on the bare earth. From being surrounded by the damp mould, it appears, when taken from the hole, of a dirty brown, but, on being washed, acquires its natural colour. The puffins seemed equally numerous as the razor-bills; they took possession of the earthy parts, while the latter sat close beside them on all the bare ledges of rock not otherwise occupied. These birds, with a few guillemots, were met with in considerable numbers along

So early as the 24th of June, 1848, I was surprised to observe a young puffin of almost full adult size among the rejectamenta of the sea at Craigavad, Belfast Bay. Though exhibiting no appearance of having been injured, it remained within a yard of me, regardless of my presence, for a few minutes; but the sight of my dog running towards me frightened it out to sea.

When crossing from Groomsport to the Mew Island, at the entrance of this bay, on July 16, 1850, we saw two of these birds in company on the water, one of which flew off at rather too great a distance to be fired at; but the other, not following its example, was shot. It proved to be a young bird of the year, and appeared equal in size to the other, which was probably its parent, as the bright orange red legs marked it to be an adult when it rose on wing. The young bird had pale flesh-coloured legs, and its bill had not attained full size.

The promontory of Oe, in Islay, is also annually visited by puffins.

I learn from Dr. Marshall, that the puffins' burrows here must have been of their own making, the place being of such a nature that rabbits could not get either up or down to feeding-ground from it.