William Thompson

“ The least reflection will convince any one who appreciates the geographical distribution of species, that the birds of Ireland are in this respect even more interesting than those of Great Britain, as, within its latitude and longitude, Ireland is the "ultima Thule," the extreme western limit to which the European species not found in the Western Hemisphere, resort. The geographical position of the island, also renders it occasionally the first European land on which North American species, after having crossed the Atlantic, alight. ”

“ From its slow and slovenly mode of flight also, the corncrake is believed to fall too easy a sacrifice to the gun. So unwilling is this bird to take wing, that I have frequently seen it when running caught on the ground by dogs. The power of flight it can exert is, however, considerable when called forth by the pursuit of the peregrine falcon, as alluded to in the history of that bird.
For a short time only after arrival can the land-rail be followed by the sportsman without injury to the meadows or crops which it frequents. ”

“ Reynolds assured me, that in Achil he once saw a pair of old sea eagles attack and kill a young bird of their own species, which they eat, leaving only the bill and legs. Footnote 10
Although we associate the sublime in scenery with the eagle, yet where these birds are of frequent occurrence, as at Achil, they are occasionally found in connection with the next step to the sublime, — the ridiculous ; an example of which we have in one being shot by a man from his bed, as it was feeding on a dead pig. ”

“ A sporting friend, who was eye-witness to the fact, assures me that when out hunting among the Belfast mountains many years ago, an eagle, which from the darkness of its plumage he concluded was the golden, appeared above his hounds as they came to fault after a good chase, on the ascent to Devis, the highest of the range. ”

“ Kite " appears commonly in the catalogues of birds given in the Statistical Surveys of the Irish counties, and elsewhere; but, as the larger species of the Falconida are in some places called Kite and Glead, as well as Goshawk or Goose- hawk, there can be no doubt that the buzzard, or some common species, was generally meant. The mere fact of rewards having been offered in the Irish Statutes Footnote 1 for the destruction of the " kite," as one of the birds of prey, does not prove anything with respect to the veritable species. ”

“ The submarine rocks and grounds on which sea-weeds grow plentifully so as to afford shelter to the minute fishes, and the molluscous and crustaceous animals on which the wading and swimming birds feed, tempt them in greater numbers to the neighbouring shores. The oozy, the sandy, the gravelly, the stony, the rocky beach, has each its favourite species, as has every peculiar natural or artificial feature of a country from the level of the sea to the most lofty mountain summit. ”

“ The tail of the Irish bird in length and size generally, exceeds that of the Nepal one, as much proportionally as the wing. In colouring and marking the two birds are similar, — agreeing with the descriptions and figures of Eyton and Yarrell, — with the unimportant difference of the Irish one being the deeper in tint, owing, it may be presumed, either to its being killed sooner after moult, or being less exposed to the sun and weather than the Nepal bird. ”

“ The presence of three generations of this animal, in the same stack, with a great number of the Mus decumanus, speaks I think decisively against the latter species destroying them.Mr. Edward Benn, who has frequently heard of the capture of black rats with white spots on their breasts, had it always described to him as being shorter in the tail than a second species of black rat, also described to him, and which was, perhaps, Mus rattus, a specimen of which, as already mentioned, he procured for me, in December, 1842. ”

“ Nor is the kind of whale-fish that affords the true spermaceti a stranger to the coast of Ireland that respects America. This we may properly,I think, call the Cetus dentatus, from its large solid white teeth fixed only in the lower jaw, to distinguish it from the species that gives the whalebone of which kind likewise there have been three or four stranded in my time, but on the eastern coast of this country that regards England.There have been three of this kind [Cetus dentatus] taken to my knowledge in the space of the six years, all on the western coast of this country ”

“ I was informed by a captain of a whale-vessel of this port, that he once found the nest of Falco Groenlandicus with young, at Cape Imilie, Baffin's Bay. The Iceland bird appears to be very common in Iceland, from which country I have had a number of specimens, both young and old, and I have an egg from the same place. ”