summer, and the eggs have been obtained near Clogheen.* It is found about Waterford; † is said to be numerous during summer about Castle Warren,‡ and Glengariff, county of Cork; § and has been obtained near Tralee, in Kerry. § The period of the chiff-chaff's arrival in the north of Ireland seems to be very uncertain: the earliest noted appeared on the 3rd of April, and on the 7th of that month, it was seen in 1838 and 1844; but on the 29th of April, 1832, and on the 30th, in 1837 || and 1840, not one could be heard in Colin Glen, the chief haunt of the species in the vicinity of Belfast. Several were heard and seen here on the 15th of April, 1847, a year in which the vernal migrants were very late in making their appearance, so much so, that this was the only species of them that I met with during a walk of twelve miles over a country of varied character as to scenery, and in which the earlier visitants, had they arrived, would have occurred: in the middle of May I have been for the greater part of a day in Colin Glen, without once hearing its notes, though during a similar time, a month before, they were almost constantly uttered, and when the days alluded to were equally fine. A certain progress of their broods may have caused the silence: after this period, we again hear the notes. On the 21st of March, 1848, in which year, the summer birds arrived very early, this species was observed at Raheny, near Dublin. The chiffchaff is considered the earliest of the summer warblers in visiting Great Britain. The time of this bird's departure from the north of Ireland has not been particularly attended to, but on the 8th of September, 1832, one was heard at Bryansford. I cannot agree with Mr. Macgillivray respecting its notes resembling "the syllables cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep, chee, rather than, chiff-chaff, cherrychurry," vol. ii. p. 381. The species is not noticed by this author or Sir Wm. Jardine, as found in Scotland, north of the vicinity of Edinburgh. § Report, Dublin Nat. Hist. Society, 1841-42, p. 8. || Birds generally-willow wren, wheatear, &c.—very late in arrival this spring. ¶ Mr. R. J. Montgomery. The occurrence of this bird crossing the Mediterranean at the migratory period in spring, will be found noticed under the willow wren. This very small and beautiful bird is common, and resident in plantations throughout Ireland. In the north its song is occasionally commenced early in the month of February,* and has been heard at the end of September. On one occasion, when a friend was attending to the process of nidification adopted by a chaffinch which built within view of his window at Cromac, it was discovered that he was not the only spectator, a regulus at some little distance being also recognised as a looker-on, and, as afterwards proved, with sinister intent. When the chaffinch took flight from the nest, this bird, in the most cunning manner, stole round in an opposite direction and carried off part of the materials. Such was its common practice, as observed in at least a dozen instances; but the chaffinch eventually discovering the regulus in the act, gave it a severe chase through the plantation, and its mal-practices were never afterwards known to be repeated. More than this isolated instance of theft can be brought against the "gold-crest;" for another friend remarks, from personal observation, that "the nest is open at the top and like a chaffinch's, from whose nest it steals the materials for its own." Notes are before me of three nests, observed in the same summer. One was placed in a cypress; another was neatly fixed to the branch of a silver-fir whose spinous leaves shaded the little opening of one inch diameter; it was * Mr. S. Poole has heard it in the county of Wexford on the 3rd of January. composed of moss mixed with a kind of fine wool-like substance, and lined with feathers; the third, composed of similar materials, was in a laurustinus and shaded by the leaves of the shrub: so late as the 18th of July it contained four young. The three plants just named, are favourite sites for the nest; for which evergreen shrubs and young coniferous trees are generally selected. The gentleman first alluded to, once remarked, to his surprise, that the eggs in a nest were placed regularly in two rows with the small ends touching each other. On the 14th of April, 1848, earlier than usual, a nest with eggs, was found near Belfast. Mr. Poole, on the 16th of April, has observed a nest containing eight eggs. Soon after the young can provide for themselves, they and their parents flit about in company, and ring their little changes throughout every plantation. In the first autumns that they thus came under my observation, I was rather disposed, from hearing them simultaneously everywhere around Belfast, to believe in a migration from the north (vide Selby's Ill. Brit. Orn., vol. i. p. 230, 2nd ed.), but having subsequently heard them in different years so early as the month of August, I now consider that it is our indigenous birds alone, which, by constantly uttering their little cries, thus attract attention. These remarks were published in 1838, in my series of papers in the Annals of Natural History, and it is only to be added, that I consider the opinion then expressed still correct as to the birds seen very early in the autumn, yet, on two subsequent years, when the species came particularly under my observation, I felt certain of a migration of these birds to the neighbourhood of Belfast at the end of September and beginning of October. All at once numbers then appeared, and their little chorus was heard throughout a whole district, in a part of which none were known to breed in the one year, and but a single nest was observed in the other. Mr. Selby gives a most interesting account of a great migration of these birds to Northumberland, and adds, that before witnessing it, he "was convinced, from the great and sudden increase of the species during the autumnal and hyemal months, that our indigenous birds must be augmented by a body of strangers making these shores their winter resort." Sir. Wm. Jardine too, writing from Dumfries-shire, speaks of "the time of migration, about November, when our accession of numbers arrives," B. B. vol. ii. p. 157. The gold-crested regulus seems not to be the hardy bird that authors generally imagine. In the north of Ireland it has frequently been found dead about the hedges, not only in severe weather, but after slight frosts. To the green-houses and hothouses in the garden of a relative near Belfast, these birds resorted so regularly in the mild winter of 1831-32, that some were captured weekly throughout the season, and taken to one of our birdpreservers: on the rere-wall of the houses is a range of sheds accessible to birds, and dense plantations of trees and evergreen shrubs are quite contiguous. They were occasionally caught at all seasons, as were common wrens and titmice many of both-together with robins, sparrows, and chaffinches. All these birds, except the robin, were cruelly sacrificed by the ignorant gardener for their intrusion into the houses, though by the destruction of insects they must have been eminently serviceable to the plants under his charge. Winter too, being the chief season of their visits, they could, even if so disposed, do little or no injury. Early in the winter of 1835, three of these birds, which had been captured by a cat in a small garden, in a very populous part of Belfast, were brought to me, and on the preceding day, four or five had in the same place shared a similar fate. In the middle of December, 1846, after a few days of frost and snow, I observed a regulus fly from a plantation at the road-side several times, and alight at the base of the demesne wall bounding the foot-way on which I walked. That done, it ascended the wall, picking for insects like a creeper (Certhia familiaris), but less continuously than that species. I was several times within two or three feet of the bird, and had I been so cruel, could have killed it with my walking-stick. Of five stomachs of the regulus which have come under my inspection in the months of December, January and May, four * In a note to White's Selborne (p. 180, ed. 1837), Mr. Herbert gives instances of the fatal effect of cold on caged individuals. were entirely filled with insects, chiefly minute Coleoptera; and the fifth contained seeds of two or three kinds in addition to fragments of stone. I shall transcribe some notes on this species just as they were made. Dec., 1839. A regulus, in the collection of Mr. R. Ball, of Dublin, obtained in that neighbourhood, attracted my attention by exhibiting a white streak continuously from one eye to the other, and which is consequently interposed between the black band bounding the crest and the bill; the crest was of the ordinary brilliant colour. On my return home, a specimen of my own, killed near Belfast, was examined, and displayed a similar white band, but not so conspicuously, between the eyes in all other characters these birds agreed with the R. cristatus of authors. Several others were examined, but none exhibited the white which possibly may be peculiar to adult males, as the brightness of the crests in both individuals possessing it, indicated them to be: the sex of all those referred to was unknown. At the end of February, 1844, I obtained another specimen with the white marking, that proved on dissection to be a male. None of the authors, to whose works I have referred, describe these white bands in the R. cristatus. Temminck, remarks that it is "sans aucun indice de bandes blanchâtres," vol. i. p. 229 in which Jenyns follows him, p. 113; Montagu (Orn. Dict.); Selby (p. 231); Yarrell, Macgillivray, Jardine (in Brit. Birds), say nothing of the white, disposed as above mentioned. The last author, however, when comparing R. cristatus with R. reguloides, in his edition of Wilson's American Ornithology, (vol. i. p. 127), incidentally observes, that "the white streak above the eye is better marked" in the latter than in the former species--the extent of the white line is not mentioned. Wilson, in describing the American bird, which he regarded as R. cristatus, remarked, that " a line of white passed round the frontlet, extending over and beyond the eye on each side," ib. p. 130. This is just the case in the individual to which attention has been particularly called, but the various differential characters in the North American and European birds are considered by Sir. Wm. Jardine, and other ornithologists who have compared them, as decidedly separating the species. A specimen of R. cristatus, from Italy-being one of a large collection of admirably stuffed birds from that country, presented by George Lenox Conyngham, Esq., to the Belfast Museum exhibits the white marking. : |