ORDER, INSESSORES.

(Perching Birds.)

THE GREAT GREY SHRIKE.

Ash-coloured Butcher-bird.

Lanius excubitor, Linn.

Has occasionally been obtained in the autumn and winter.

Two of these birds came under the notice of Templeton; one shot in the county of Down, and sent to him by Rainey Maxwell Esq., and the other, observed by himself in the county of Antrim, about the beginning of the present century. Four, obtained in these counties, have come under my own observation. The first, a bird in mature plumage, was shot at Echlinville, late in the autumn, more than twenty years ago;—the second, an adult male, was killed at Beechmount, near Belfast, in November, 1824; another individual was in company with it, and remained about the place for a few weeks afterwards;-in a neighbouring locality, one, (perhaps the latter bird,) was shot during the few days of frost which occurred at the end of January, 1835. A recent adult male was shot on a thorn-hedge at Kilmore, county of Down, on the 15th of January, 1845: in its crop was the greater portion of a grey linnet, which was recognised by a few feathers that remained. On the 16th of November, 1846, a recent bird of this species, killed a few days before, came under my examination in Belfast. The contents of the stomach consisted entirely

of insect food; the remains of earwigs, Carabi, and Staphylini. It was ascertained that this bird had first been taken by a birdcatcher, between Kilrea and Garvagh (county of Londonderry) in a trap-cage set for goldfinches. Being kept for some days in a cage with a canary-finch, it did not molest this bird, though refusing all food that was offered. It escaped from the cage, and was afterwards shot in the garden of Dr. Lane, at Newtownlimavady. The plumage being smeared with bird-lime sufficed for its identification.

Further, noting the localities from north to south, one of these birds was killed at Mullaghmore, county of Sligo, about the year 1831 or 1832;* another preserved at Knockdrin Castle, Westmeath, the seat of Sir Richard Levinge, bart., was obtained there previous to 1834. In the year 1822 or 1823, one was procured on Shankhill mountain, county of Dublin, and in the Phoenix Park, adjacent to the city, another was shot in 1831 (?). In the Queen'scounty, one was killed on the 18th of December, 1847.† The species is said to have been met with in the counties of Tipperary and Waterford; a specimen was procured near Cork in 1824; ‡ a second, as noticed in the Fauna of Cork (Introduction, p. iv.), was shot near Carrigalane, about ten miles to the south of the city, at the end of October, 1844, and a third was obtained in the same quarter, early in August, 1845.

The ash-coloured shrike is only an occasional visitant to England and Scotland, having been met with in those countries at uncertain periods, as above noticed with respect to Ireland. It has never been known to breed in Great Britain, but is stated to do so, and remain during the year in France.

THE RED-BACKED SHRIKE (Lanius collurio), a regular summer visitant to England; and the WoODCHAT (L. rufus), a very rare one, to that country, cannot at present be included in the Irish catalogue; nor is either species enumerated in that of Scotland by Sir W. Jardine

* Mr. H. H. Dombrain.

† Mr. Robt. J. Montgomery.

The same noticed in Cork Fauna, p. 5, although the year appears different there.

or Mr. Macgillivray. The following shrikes came under my observation when proceeding from Malta to the Morea in 1841-April 23rd, when eighty miles from Malta, and Cape Passaro fifty miles distant, a lesser gray shrike (L. minor) flew on board; I had a near view of it several times:-25th, when 135 miles east of Mount Etna, and about sixty from Calabria, a shrike (the species of which I could not distinguish, owing to the height at which it kept on the rigging,) seized a yellow wren (Sylvia trochilus) which it eat except the bill:-26th, distant from Zante (the nearest land) eighty-six miles, 130 from Navarino, a fine male woodchat (L. rufus) was caught on board. The L. minor has not yet been noticed in England, but has been met with as far north on the continent as Holland.

THE SPOTTED FLYCATCHER.

Muscicapa grisola, Linn.

Is a regular summer visitant to some parts of Ireland : AND perhaps to suitable localities throughout the island;—which seem to be especially gardens and pleasure-grounds. The species is little known, except to the observant ornithologist. Owing to the dullness of its plumage, its want of song, and its weak call being seldom heard, the spotted flycatcher is certainly one of the least obtrusive of our birds; the trees, too, having put forth their "leafy honours" before the period of its arrival, further serve to screen it from observation. To Templeton it was known as a regular summer visitant to the neighbourhood of Belfast; a pair is mentioned as having built in the lime-trees at his residence, Cranmore, in July, 1801 and 1802. It is the latest of the summer birds in making its appearance about Belfast; the 7th or 8th of May (1838) being the earliest date of its arrival noted by me. On either of those days one was seen at the Falls; but on the 12th of the same month in that year, not one was met with in Shane's Castle Park, á circumstance implying that the arrival had not been general; on the 15th of May, 1832, the species was observed at Wolf-hill. White remarked its

arrival at Selborne more than once to be so late as the 20th of May. It remains in the north of Ireland until autumn is very far advanced.

In addition to the ordinary places selected for nidification here, as trees, holes in walls, &c., I have seen a nest at the Falls, resting in part upon an aperture in a wall, and partly on the branch of a fig-tree trained against it. Garden walls, indeed, seem to be favourite sites for the nest. This is generally of careless construction, and formed of various materials, occasionally of moss, to which is sometimes added hair, cobwebs, and feathers; the last not being always used, even as lining. An observant friend states that a nest placed against the unglazed window of an outhouse at Beechmount, was so composed of cobwebs inside and outside, that no other material was visible. From its choice of this fragile building substance, the spotted flycatcher is called cobweb bird in some parts of England. On the nest alluded to being approached when it contained young, the parent bird was very bold, flying angrily at the intruder, uttering shrill cries, and approaching him so near that it might almost have been struck with his hand.*

A pair of these birds is said to have built their nest on the angle of a lamp-post in one of the streets of Leeds, and brought up their young there; † in the ornamental crown surmounting a lamp near Portland Place, London, a nest was also constructed, in which five eggs were laid and incubated. That a pair might have had similar intentions in Belfast, was supposed on the 8th of June, 1842, when one was seen from our parlour in Donegal Square to alight on a lamp-post a few yards distant from the window, where it was soon joined by another, and both continued there for some time, making occasional sorties after flies, but still returning to the lamp-post. This site was not, however,

* In Macgillivray's Brit. Birds. vol. iii. p. 522, most interesting memoranda on the number of times during one whole day that a pair of these birds fed their young are given from the observation of Mr. Durham Weir; who adds, that "they beat off most vigorously all kinds of small birds that approach their nest."

+Atkinson's Compendium.

Jesse's Gleanings, second series, and Yarrell's Brit. Birds.

chosen, but in a more natural one, among ivy on an adjacent wall in the square, it was afterwards ascertained that they had a nest. In a town-garden here, a pair of these birds built for a long period annually; too many of the choicest sites always "offering," where bad bricks had crumbled away and left "ample space and verge enough" for the summer mansion of the flycatcher. The nest was at least partially screened from observation by the foliage of the fruit trees upon the wall; the eggs were generally four in number.

The Rev. Geo. Robinson of Tanderagee informs me (1847) that the spotted flycatcher is as numerous in the demesne at Drumbanagher, as he has ever seen it in the parks or pleasure-grounds of England. He has observed it, but not commonly, at other places in the county of Armagh, and also in Tyrone. From the vicinity of Londonderry, specimens were obtained for the Ordnance Survey collection. This species regularly visits the neighbourhood of Dublin. The Rev. Thomas Knox remarks, that it breeds about Killaloe, county of Clare, and has occasionally either two broods, or builds a second time if the first nest be destroyed, as on the 1st of August, 1833, he saw one sitting on young birds, though on the 8th of June in the previous year, he knew a brood to have been hatched.* It is not uncommon, and breeds about Clonmel.† In the Fauna of Cork it is said to be a regular summer visitant to that county.

THE PIED FLYCATCHER (Muscicapa atricapilla or M. luctuosa), a summer visitant to some parts of England, has not been met with in Ireland or Scotland. When on the 26th of April, 1841, in H.M.S. Beacon nearly ninety miles from Zante, the nearest land, and 130 from Navarino, a male white-collared flycatcher (Muscicapa albicollis) was caught on board, and on the following day, when about half that distance from these places respectively, two or three more male birds flew on board, as did also the same number of females, either of M. albicollis or M. atricapilla, but more probably of the former species.

* On this subject see note to White's Selborne, p. 179, ed. 1837, and Journal of a Naturalist, p. 207.

+ Mr. Davis.