408 Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



History' (p. 81), and dated Ardress, county Armagh, re- 

 marks — " there was a flight of these birds in my plantations 

 for weeks in 1813 or 1814*." In 1821, when crossbills were 

 so abundant in Scotland, they visited Ireland also, and some 

 were killed about Belfast — here a venerable friend has from 

 his early years known them as occasional winter visitants, and 

 has captured them when feeding, by means of fishing-rods 

 smeared with bird-lime. 



Since my own attention has been given to the subject, the cross- 

 bill is recorded either in my notes or otherwise as occurring at the 

 following times and places : — " in the county of Wicklow, about De- 

 cember 1828" (Dr. J. D. Marshall) ; and on the 26th of this month, 

 when an example was obtained near Belfast ; it was on the top of a 

 larch- fir, apparently feeding on the cones when fired at, and being only 

 wounded, clung so tenaciously to the branch that it was with diffi- 

 culty got down ; in the winter of this same year the species was shot 

 in the county of Tyrone or Armagh — near Belfast in the winter of 

 1 829-30 ; in the month of January in this latter year, specimens 

 were procured in the county of Wicklow; — Dr. Burkitt, of Waterford, 

 writes to me that " crossbills visited us in 1831, and were said to be 

 very destructive to orchards near the city ;" — near Belfast in July 

 1833, when several in red plumage were obtained ; — December 22, 

 1835, one was shot at Crumlin, county of Antrim, and about the 

 same day another was killed when feeding in company with a few 

 others in larch-firs near Lurgan, county of Armagh ; — about the 1st 

 of February 1836, two, shot near Tanderagee in the last-named 

 county, came under my inspection ; the point of the lower mandible 

 extended beyond the profile of the upper in one of them ; their sto- 

 machs were filled with larch-seed : a specimen was shot near Belfast 

 in the same month. When visiting Tollymore Park, county of Down, 

 this year (1836), in the month of August, I was informed by the in- 

 telligent gamekeeper that a pair of crossbills had bred there in the 

 summer just then passed ; he saw them with their three young ones : 

 although he bad before observed this species here in the winter, he 

 had not done so in summer until that time ; — July 1837, I saw two 

 examples in Dublin which were shot in the neighbourhood of the 

 Dargle, county of Wicklow, at the end of June, when many more 

 were in company with them : they attracted attention by their noise, 

 which was described to resemble that produced by the breaking of 

 sticks, and the observer on looking up saw the birds hanging to the 

 upper branches of fir-trees engaged in opening the cones for the seed. 

 — In the winter of 1837-38, the following note of specimens which 

 were sent to Dublin to be preserved was obligingly made for me by 

 T. W. Warren, Esq., and H. H. Dombrain, Esq. : " Oct. 20. Num- 

 bers seen and some killed in the neighbourhood of Booterstown, 



* Loxia coccothraustes is the scientific name applied to the bird referred 

 to, but from the observation that it is significantly called " cross-beak," it 

 seems to me warrantable to conclude that Loxia curvirostra is meant. 



