Mr. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 13 



most unnatural size, but did not long survive, falling a victim 

 most probably to too good living. Butter is so great a dainty to 

 these birds, that in a friend's house frequented during the 

 winter by one or two of them, the servant was obliged to be 

 very careful in keeping covered what was in her charge to save 

 it from destruction : if unprotected it was certain to be dis- 

 covered. I have notes of their visiting labourers at their 

 breakfast hour and eating butter out of their hands, and en- 

 tering a lantern to feast on the candle. But even further than 

 this, I have seen the redbreast exhibit its partiality for scraps 

 of fat, &c. Being present a few days ago (December 1837) 

 when the golden eagle described at page 45 of vol. ii. of the 

 Magazine of Zool. and Bot. was fed, to my surprise one of 

 these birds took the eagle's place on the perch the moment 

 he descended from it to the ground to eat the food given him, 

 and when there it picked off some little fragments ; and this 

 done, quite unconcernedly alighted on the chain by which he 

 was fastened. I at the same time learned that it thus regu- 

 larly visited the eagle's abode at feeding-time, and as yet there 

 has not been any severity of weather. A plant of the Fuchsia 

 tenella in the (C Falls" greenhouse was entirely deprived of its 

 seed by these birds. 



Except at the moulting period the song of the redbreast is 

 heard with us throughout the year, and in the grey morning 

 as well as the dusk of the autumnal and winter afternoon ; by 

 moonlight it was once heard by an ornithological friend at the 

 last-named locality. I have more than once listened to the 

 commencement of its song in the first week of June at a 

 quarter before three o'clock. In fine autumnal mornings suc- 

 ceeding wet nights, the favourite time for the harmony of this 

 and many other birds, I have seen and heard about a dozen 

 of redbreasts singing at once, when perched at pretty regular 

 distances, twenty-five to thirty yards apart. So many of them 

 sending forth their notes at one time — without reference to 

 plumage, which sufficiently marks the adult from the imma- 

 ture — satisfies me that the young birds of the year bear their 

 part in the concert, and the fact of every individual in view 

 trilling forth its notes, favours the idea that the female bird 

 also is possessed of song. 



