The eggs in the same nest vary in colour occasionally, some being greatly darker than others. The site of a nest seen by my informant on the 15th of July, 1846, when the young were coming forward, was the end of a plank forming part of a pile of timber, built against the yard wall of a mill, at the outskirts of Belfast. The pied wagtail built that season among some timber in the same yard. The song of the titlark has rarely been heard about Belfast before March, but, in a mild season (1828), was so, as early as the 4th of February. Mr. Poole, writing from the county of Wexford, observes that he has known this species sing soon after the middle of March, and commence nest-building in the first week of April; the nest being composed of dry grasses, with some few black horse-hairs for lining.*

The stomach of one of these birds, examined by me in December, was chiefly filled with minute coleopterous insects, but contained also worms, minute fragments of brick, and two perfect specimens of the shell Bulimus lubricus; another was filled with oats and barley; a third, with seeds and insect larvæ.

The titlark has been already noticed as frequenting mountain tracts of the very greatest elevation in Ireland;--in the summer and autumn it has occurred to me on very lofty summits in Scotland. About the top of Ben Lomond it was the only bird seen; and frequented the almost equally high mountains at Aberarder, Inverness-shire.† I have remarked it in summer, to be common-as may be expected-in the low grounds of Holland.

ment which the long grass amongst which it was snugly sheltered, had previously afforded." p. 138 (1846).

* Belfast, September the 28th, 1848.-A beautiful variety of the titlark came under my notice. It was shot in a wild state, and sent to a taxidermist to preserve. More than one half of its plumage was pure white. The top of the head and upper portion were beautiful rich primrose-yellow, which colour, also, broadly edged the white feathers of the back, and those of the upper surface of the wings and tail. The throat and under side of the neck, were pure white. One wing was very handsome, owing to the first four quills being pure white, the next four, of the usual dark colour, and the several succeeding them, pure white. As usual in such cases, the feathers of the opposite wing, were not similarly marked. One half of the tail-feathers were wholly white, with the exception, as in the quills, of being broadly edged with primrose-yellow. The only ordinary plumage remaining, except a few odd feathers, was on the belly, where the deep buff, with its brownish markings appeared. The bill and legs were paler in hue than usual.

+ When ascending Snowdon, in the summer of 1835, neither this nor any other bird appeared towards the summit.

THE ROCK PIPIT.

Rock-Lark. Field-lark, of Bewick.

Anthus petrosus, Mont. (sp.*)
aquaticus, Bechst.

Alauda obscura, Gmel.

Inhabits the sea-coasts throughout the year,

AND has on those of the north, east, west, and south, commonly occurred to me. Although this species does not appear in Mr. Templeton's published Catalogue of Irish Vertebrata,† I find by reference to his MS. that he was acquainted with it. Under the name of Alauda petrosa, he remarked, "common about the rocks, on the shore." It is nowhere more plentiful than about the rocky marine islets, of which Tory, off the north of Donegal,‡ and the south islands of Arran (off the bay of Galway), by reason of their extreme position, may be particularized.

With the following observations of Montagu, my own entirely agree. He remarks that the rock pipit seems wholly confined to the neighbourhood of the sea, and is never found, even in winter, more remote than the contiguous marshes within the occasional influx of the tide, depending chiefly on marine insects for its subsistence, and has never been observed to be gregarious." (Art. Rock Lark in Orn. Dict.) Mr. Selby has observed it to be "strictly confined to the rocky and abrupt shores;" (Ill. Brit. Orn., vol. i. p. 259.) but close to the town of Belfast, a coast of the very opposite character is frequented by this bird. On the lowest and most oozy part of the beach, it may always be seen about the rejectamenta of the tide, consisting almost wholly of the Zostera marina, the accumulated masses of which form the chief attraction. To stony embankments, piers, and similar erections, it

* This species is named Alauda petrosa, and rock lark by Montagu, in a paper published in the 4th vol. of the Linnæan Transactions, entitled "Descriptions of three rare species of British Birds." The only synonyms there referred to are Alauda obscura, Latham, and dusky lark, Lewin. The two other species are the wood wren, Sylvia sylvicola, and the Phayrelarn sandpiper, Tringa nigricans. This note is introduced here, in consequence of the paper being referred to in different works, without the author's name being mentioned.

Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. i., new series.
Several observed here in Aug. 1845, by Mr. Hyndman.

is likewise partial, as it is in Holland, according to Temminck. In my previous publication on this species (Ann. Nat. Hist. vol. i. 1838), attention was called to the very different nature of the localities stated by this author to be frequented by it, and I felt certain that in connection with some of them, another species must be meant. The subsequent publication of the fourth part of his admirable "Manuel," proved this view to be correct, and that two species had been confounded. The name Anthus aquaticus, Bechst. (p. 623) he now applies to the species inhabiting the south of Europe, and "Ant. obscurus, Temm." (p. 628) to our bird, which frequents the borders of the sea.

In pursuit of food, we find most of the true shore birds (Grallatores) frequenting the bare beach, whether oozy, gravelly, or sandy; but the rock pipit generally seeks its sustenance, either on the masses of seaweed, which when growing are exposed at ebb-tide, or on those which have been cast ashore. A favourite position is on large fuci-covered stones left dry between tide-marks. When looking for the nests of terns on the 13th of June, upon the Mew Island, off the coast of Down, where the rock pipit is common, I observed one of its nests. This was wholly composed of fine grasses, which also served for lining, and was placed on the ground, at the base of a narrow ledge of rock. It contained three eggs, well incubated, which were greenish white, closely and pretty uniformly speckled all over with pale brown. When visiting several of the islands of Strangford Lough on the 22nd of June, 1846, rock pipits were found numerous on them. Several of their nests were observed, from all of which, both eggs and young were gone. They were placed far in, beneath the shelter of projecting stones, and formed simply of the dried grasses which had grown there; no other material was used, even for lining. The food observed in one which was shot consisted of several small univalve shells (Littorina), in addition to Coleopterous insects. The stomachs of three killed, on the shore of Strangford Lough, in the first week of March, 1847, were entirely filled with minute Crustacea (Gammari).

Mr. Poole, writing of the county of Wexford, remarks that the

nest is generally on the slope of a grassy bank, or in cliffs at no great height above the sea, is composed of dry grass-stalks, and lined with a few black horse-hairs. He has found nests containing eggs, and others having young on the 7th of May :-a bird which he startled from her nest, feigned being hurt, evidently to draw his attention thence to herself.

At the Giant's Causeway, where these birds are particularly numerous, I have been much interested, in the middle of June, by observing them ascend gradually to a great height in the air, uttering continuously "cheep-cheep" between each beat of the wings, and then descend in perfect silence as quickly, and at about the same angle, perhaps fifty degrees. The descent was accomplished with motionless wing, their little breasts being shot out like puff-balls. From my always seeing a pair of these birds about the wall at the neighbouring salmon-cuts (Bush-foot), I had no doubt of their having a nest in some of its apertures.

I have remarked this species to be as common on the coasts of Wigton-shire and Ayrshire, as in Ireland.

RICHARD'S PIPIT (Anthus Richardi), which has on very few occasions been obtained in England, has not been seen in Scotland (Jard. Macg.) or Ireland.

:

Is an occasional, but rare, winter visitant.

MR. TEMPLETON has said of this bird: "Sometimes seen about Belfast, but more common in Tullamore Park, county Down; has been several times* shot in the county of Derry;" Charlesworth's Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. i. p. 405. By a veteran sporting friend, the wax-wing has twice been met with in the neighbourhood of Belfast, and in both instances in wooded glens within the district of the Falls in the lower part of Colin glen, and at Milltown. One * "Once" instead of "several times," in Mr. Templeton's MS.

con

of these birds was shot about thirty years ago, and the other, siderably before that time, when severe frost and snow prevailed. About the year 1820, one was killed at Castle Martyr, county of Cork. "In the winter of 1822-23, a specimen of the Bombycilla Bohemica, Briss., was found dead in the woods of Burton Hall, in the county of Carlow." Zool. Journ., vol. i. p. 590. This note was contributed by Mr. Vigors, who informed me in November, 1839, that since the winter of 1822-3, chatterers had been obtained in three different years on the mountains, between the counties of Carlow and Wexford. A specimen was procured in the Castlereagh hills, county of Down, about the winter of 1825-26. Dr. J. D. Marshall has noticed a male bird which was shot in the neighbourhood of Dublin, in January, 1829; and in this, or the following winter, another was killed at Ardtane, in that quarter. In the Belfast News-letter of Dec. 20, 1831, the following paragraph appeared:-"In the early part of last month a beautiful specimen of the Bohemian wax-wing (Bombycilla Bohemica, Briss.), was shot in Newtownlimavady. It was perched upon a rowan tree in a garden, and seemed busily employed in picking off the berries; many of them were found in its craw when it was opened. It is preserved in the collection of Dr. Tyler of Newtownlimavady." On Feb. the 6th, 1835, an extremely beautiful individual of this species, was shot in a garden at Ballymacarrett, in the suburbs of Belfast, and on the following day, another was seen at the same place. The former, which came under my inspection, proved on dissection to be a female; its stomach, which I did not examine until the 10th, four days after death, was entirely filled with the haws of the white-thorn (Crataegus Oxyacantha), which exhaled an odour as fresh, as if just plucked from the tree. Each wing exhibited six plumelets, with their scarlet wax-like adornments; some authors have described the female as wanting these altogether, and the greatest number I have seen attributed to her, are four or five. (Temm.) In this or the following winter, a specimen was ob*Mr. R. Ball. † Mag. N. H. ii. 394.

Two were killed in this month in the north of England. Phil. Mag., 1832, p. 84.