strewn about, and inferred that it had been torn up by either the thrush or blackbird in search of food: from what is just stated, there can be little doubt of the correctness of my inference. Mr. Moore, now curator of the Botanic Garden, Glasnevin, Dublin, informed me in the last-mentioned year, that when he was in the College Botanic Garden near that city, he remarked several species of plants to be much injured by birds; and more especially the rare alpine plant, Cherleria sedoides. In the month of September of two different years, I remarked an old male blackbird regaling on the flowers of a fine large bushy Fuchsia coccinea, in the midst of which he remained for a considerable time; on the former occasion, which was at the end of the month, the plant was profusely in berry, but retained only a few flowers,-the last ones of summer,— yet of these only did he partake; in the other instance it was covered with bloom. In the middle of June, 1843, two of my relatives living at Ballysillan, in the neighbourhood of Belfast, were attracted during a few successive days by numbers of blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows, and robins, flying to the grass of the verdure garden before the windows of the house, and bearing off white objects in their bills:-on going to the place, my friends found some of them, which on being brought to me, proved to be all ghost moths (Hepialus humuli). A blackbird which was often seen about the parlour window at a friend's country-house, was fed during frost with crumbs of bread thrown beneath a tree within view of the house; others came to join in the repast, and were sometimes beaten away by it, as was a missel thrush, which -though its superior in size, and a bolder species—was not · permitted to pick up a morsel. The presumption was, that the same blackbird "ruled the roast" all the time, and was bold and confident from the locality being its home. Robins may often be seen driving strange birds of their own species from their "beats." Birds of various kinds have not only their homes, where they act like man in considering "his house his castle," but lay claim also to the regions round about, and drive all others of the species from their locality.

In the stomachs of thirteen blackbirds examined by me in November, December, and January, in various years, were haws, seeds, and soft vegetable matter, coleopterous and other insects and their larvæ, earth worms, limacelli, &c.: in three were land-shells, one stomach alone exhibiting six specimens of Bulimus lubricus, and ten of Helix radiata ;-the weather was mild when this bird was obtained, as it was when another filled with haws was procured. Minute Coleoptera were the most abundant food. In summer, I have seen the Helix nemoralis attacked by this species. During frost, the blackbird suffers much, and irrigated meadows are favourite feeding-ground: as are ditch-banks, overgrown with brambles, in winter generally.

In the winter of 1813-14, there was an extremely severe and long-continued frost in the north of Ireland. At the commencement of the thaw, above a hundred birds, chiefly blackbirds and thrushes, were found floating dead on the stream flowing from a spring at Ballynafeigh, near Belfast. It was believed that the birds had been tempted to the place by the spring (which at its immediate source remained unfrozen) and by the comparative shelter of overhanging trees. Water was extremely scarce in the neighbourhood. The birds were considered to have foundered from time to time during the continuance of the frost, though noticed only on its breaking up.

Several native specimens of the blackbird variegated with white -in some instances obviously the result of disease-have come under my notice in Belfast; the tarsi and toes were sometimes marked with white. Correspondents mention the occurrence of these varieties in all quarters of the island. A friend has remarked two pied ones at the same time flying about his demesne. A few notes on the subject may be given. January 20th, 1838. I was shown by Mr. Wm. Marshall, of Belfast, a male blackbird, either twenty or twenty-one years old, which had been taken from the nest by a waiter at an hotel in Dungannon, and kept by him from that period until a few days ago, when it died. Its entire head was bald or destitute of feathers; the wings displayed as much white as black; the quills being white, and the coverts black.

In the Belfast Commercial Chronicle of December 25, 1839, the following paragraph appeared under the heading of

"A VENERABLE BLACKBIRD. There is at present in the possession of Mr. John Spence, of Tullaghgarley, near Ballymena, a blackbird that has arrived at the wonderful age of twenty years and nearly eight months. It was taken by him from the nest when young, and ever since has enjoyed the very best of health. It still continues to sing, and that well. He feeds him on potatoes baked up with a little oatmeal, of which he is uncommonly fond. He is, however, beginning to shew symptoms of old age, his head is getting grey, and a number of white feathers are springing up on his neck and breast."

January 12, 1843, I saw at Mr. Nichol's, bird-preserver, Belfast, a female blackbird with a pure white head, and which was otherwise singular in having the entire upper plumage black like a male, while the under plumage was that of a female. This caused persons equally skilled in the species to differ in opinion respecting its sex; it proved on dissection to be a female. The bird had been observed (the white head marking it) for two years about a country house, and was carefully protected from shooters, but unfortunately at last fell a victim to a rat-trap, in which it was captured. Mr. Davis of Clonmel has mentioned a male blackbird with a white head having been picked up in a dying state on the 18th of January, 1848, at Rocklow, near Fethard, where it had been known for the preceeding fifteen years, and had come every day at luncheon hour to be fed. A pure white one is said to have been taken in the summer of 1845, from a nest at Monkstown, in which were three others of the ordinary colour.*

Mr. Richard Langtry, after returning in 1838, from shooting at Aberarder, Inverness-shire, where he had spent three months, informed me that no blackbirds were seen, although there is much wood towards the base of the mountains: when there myself during the month of September, 1842, I did not meet with one of these birds, although there are extensive woods and trees

* Mr. R. Warren, junr., Castle Warren, Cork.

of various growth about the place. The song-thrush, too, is In some parts of France, Switzerland, and Italy, I have

scarce.

observed the blackbird to be common.

THE RING-OUZEL.

Rock or Mountain Blackbird. Rock Starling.

Turdus torquatus, Linn.

Is found during summer in suitable localities over the island.

FROM the south to the north of Ireland the ring-ouzel is a summer inhabitant of certain haunts, which wholly differ in their character from those frequented by the other British thrushes, and render it little known except to the student of nature, or to the visitor of the wild and rocky mountain scenery.* To my ear its call-note is extremely pleasing, from association in the mind with the free spirit of nature, with localities which own not,-and never will own,-man's dominion. The ring-ouzel is truly a "tenant of the wild." It first became familiar to me in the glens or ravines cleft in the range of mountains lying westward of Belfast, every one of which, that displayed wild romantic beauty in an eminent degree, boasted its pair or more of these birds, whose haunts were always where the cliffs or banks were loftiest, and where the cascade formed a picturesque accompaniment to the scene. Within the distance of five or six miles were as many of these localities thus resorted to, and where only, throughout the district, the birds were to be found, except at the periods of their migratory movements. When walking in the Crow Glen, one of these haunts, on a summer evening in 1829, with my pointer dog

* When observing the two other fine species of European rock-thrush-Turdus saxatilis and T. cyaneus-about the Alps of Switzerland and Italy, the former of which was particularly conspicuous in the wild rocky defiles of the Rhigi, I could not but wish that, like the ring-ouzel, they also were visitants to Ireland. Two individuals of the T. saxatilis have of late years been obtained in England. See Yarr. Brit. Birds. Supp. to 1st edit. and 2nd edit,

some paces in advance, it was amusing to see two ring-ouzels pursuing him, and approaching so near as to strike the air violently within a few inches of his head; their loudest cries being at the same time uttered. Many an earnest and expressive look the dog gave towards me, as if desirous of advice in his extremity, but finding it in vain, he at length ran up to me, when the birds, nothing daunted, followed, and gave myself as well as two friends who were with me, the same salute, flying so near that we could almost have struck them with our hands. At the beginning of the onset, a female bird appeared, as if inciting the males forward, and continued until they attained the highest pitch of violence, when like another heroine, she retired to a commanding eminence to be "spectatress of the fight." Had these birds been a pair protecting their young, or assuming similar artifice to the lapwing in withdrawing attention from its nest, (in which the ring-ouzel is said to be an adept,) the circumstance would be unworthy of notice, but the assailants were both male birds in adult plumage. The chase of the dog was continued a considerable way down the glen, and for about fifteen or twenty minutes. There were two or three pair there in that season, and one of their nests containing four eggs was discovered; it was artfully placed beneath an overhanging bank, whose mosses, growing naturally, concealed those of which the nest was composed from ordinary view. The usual building site is on the ground, and generally on the side either of the shelving or precipitous banks of our mountain-streams.

Throughout Ireland in similar localities to those already noticed, we have met with the ring-ouzel from April to October, as in "The Glens," Glenariff, &c., about Cushendall in Antrim ; about Rosheen mountain, and Lough Salt in Donegal; at the head of the ravine between Sleive Donard,-the loftiest of the mountains of Mourne in Down, rising nearly three thousand feet above the sea, which washes its base, and the mountains to its north-west; on the heights of Carlingford mountain in Louth, where the beautiful flowers of the rare Rhodiola rosea at the same time met the eye; about Achil Head, one of the most westerly points of Mayo; and on the high rocky hills

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