The Natural History of Ireland

"With so much already done pictorially and descriptively, on the subject of British ornithology, it may be considered superfluous to treat of the birds of Ireland in a separate work, but, in the author's opinion, every country should possess a Natural History specially appertaining to itself.

In the publications referred to, the birds of Ireland have been but briefly indicated, — a species generally dis- missed in a single line, and so much appearing only in two works; — those of Sir Win.

Text on the bird species, Thompson’s main interest, is a mixture of his own observations (some of which he had previously published in Annals and Magazine of Natural History), and as quotations, those of British authors and his many correspondents in Ireland.

Note that the quote is verbatim, the verification complete and the museum location given and that Temminck's French text has been translated and that Thompson knows that this is the first British Isles record.

On being sent to Dublin to be preserved, an excellent coloured drawing of it, the size of life, was kindly made by Miss Battersby, and forwarded for my acceptance: the plumage represented agrees best with that of the adult bird, as described by Temminck.

"Mr Gould, in his well known work on the Birds of Europe, says, that the true habitat of this species is the wooded districts, skirting the sultry plains of North Africa, but those that pass the Mediterranean, find a congenial climate in Spain and Italy.

* Invertebrata In this section the editors of Volume 4 (Dickie, Garrett and Patterson) were assisted by two of its contributors Robert Ball in Dublin and George Crawford Hyndman in Belfast who had supplied Thompson with information on Invertebrates .

The notes were written on paper "of the most miscellaneous description; and occasionally on scraps so small that six or eight lines were crowded into a slip not exceeding an inch in breadth".