Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/152

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128
merulidæ.

of Toomavara, in the county of Tipperary, is noted by the Rev. T. Knox, to be about the 7th of November ; in summer it is also met with there in pairs and limited numbers, as well as about Killaloe, his former residence.

Mr. Macgillivray remarks that he has not met with this bird in the northern division of Scotland (B. B. vol. ii. p. 121), but as many as thirty together were commonly seen by my friend Richard Langtry, about Aberarder — sixteen miles southward of the town of Inverness — in the autumn of 1838. They at first frequented the heath (adjacent to a wood), as he supposed for the purpose of feeding on the berries of the trailing Arbutus or bear-berry [Arctostaphylos uva-ursi), and afterwards destroyed the cherries in the garden, several at a time being engaged picking the fruit from a single tree. Over the southern portion of Scotland, the missel thrush is remarked by Sir William Jardine to be "generally distributed." It has, as in Ireland, increased much of late years. When on a visit in August, 1839, to a most observant sportsman, near Ballantrae, in Ayrshire, he remarked that this bird was quite unknown there until the few preceding years, within which time two of its nests were built near the village, and large flocks were seen at Auchairne ; in the glens about which place there are extensive young plantations. On the 2nd of September, I remarked a flock of a dozen at Glen-tig, in the same district. In the summer of 1826, I met with this species in Switzerland, but not so commonly as in its favourite haunts in Ireland.

WHITE'S THRUSH.

The Rough-footed Eagle.

Turdus Whitei, Eyton.

Has once occurred in Ireland.

As noticed by Mr. G.J. Allman (now Professor of Botany in Trinity College, Dublin,) in the 11th vol. of the Annals of Natural History, p. 78. The communication is dated Dec, 15th, 1842, and states that the writer is in possession of a specimen of this very rare bird, obtained about ten days previously in the neighbour-