Common Eider Duck in Co. WexfordAuthor(s): A. R. NicholsSource: The Irish Naturalist, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Jan., 1913), p. 20Published by: Irish Naturalists' Journal Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25524050 .

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20 The Irish Naturalist. January, 1913.

Wexford, to a company of Frenchmen, who immediately fenced it in and,

having freely irrigated it from an adjoining stream, proceeded to sow it

down under a leech crop. The seed, if we may so express it, was contained

in sacks, each holding 15,000 leeches, which were scattered from the hand

just as corn is sown."

It would'be very interesting to know the subsequent history of this

leech "

farm." Dr. Scharff states that his efforts to obtain an Irish speci men of the Medicinal Leech have been fruitless. This locality might prove fruitful if carefully searched. If the species is found there, a careful record

should be made of the colour pattern for comparison with the plates in

Ebrard's "

Sangsues Medicinales "

(1857), where local varieties are care

fully described, and thus a. clue to their probable origin be obtained.

Of course, this is "

counting the chickens before they are hatched," but

until last year it was thought, that the Medicinal Leech was extinct in

England. My friend, Mr. Wm. N. Blair, has recently obtained several

specimens from the New Forest.

H. Whitehead.

Toynbee Hall, London, E.

Common Eider Duck in Co. Wexford. An immature male Common Eider Duck (Somaieria mollissima), shot

on the south end of the South Slob, Wexford Harbour, on the 12th

November, 1912, has been sent to the Dublin Museum by Colonel j. J. Perceval.

This Duck is a rare straggler to Ireland, chiefly to the northern coast, and Mr. Ussher, in Birds of Ireland, only mentions two. specimens from

Co. Wexford, one obtained previously to 1834 and the other in 1876. The first nesting of the Common Eider in Ireland (Co. Donegal) has

recently been announced in British Birds.

A. R. Nichols.

National Museum, Dublin.

Siberian Skylark in Co. Cork.

Dr. Hartert, of Tring, has most kindly examined for me some Skylarks obtained from Irish light-stations, and has detected amongst them a

specimen of Alauda arvensis cinerea, killed striking at the Old Head of

Kinsale, Co. Cork, October 7th, 1910. The only other British record of

this lark from Western Siberia is the Scottish specimen from the Flannan

Islands, obtained February 24th, 1906 (W. Eagle Clarke, in Ann. Scot.

Nat. Uist., 1906, p. 139).

R. M. Barrington,

Fassaroe, Bray.

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