4T8 Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



miliar History of Birds ' and the * Journal of a Naturalist,' their ha- 

 bits are admirably treated of : in the former work the singular flight 

 of a large body before retiring to roost is described in the most graphic 

 manner. Mr. Knapp correctly observes, that M they seem continually 

 to be running into clusters," which, in the winter season, " brings on 

 them death/' as they become thereby a temptation to the shooter ; 

 but an instance to the contrary may here be mentioned. A small 

 flock observed by a shooter of my acquaintance alighted in a field 

 where his cow was grazing, and clustering on the ground about her 

 head, kept pace with her movements, watching it was believed for 

 some favourite food which she aroused ; hence the birds, though 

 fairly within shot, could not be fired at, lest the cow should be 

 brought down by the same discharge ! 



The starling is to be met with very generally over the continent. 

 Holland may, from the nature of the country, be called its metro- 

 polis. Southward, I have in August seen it in the Pontine marshes 

 between Rome and Naples ; and eastward, observed numbers in the 

 middle of the month of May about the ruined walls of Constantinople, 

 near the celebrated Seven Towers. On comparing an example killed 

 in Ireland with one from India labelled " Suharunpoor ; January," 

 they proved identical in species. 



The Rose-coloured Pastor, Pastor roseus, Temm., 

 has at rare and uncertain intervals during the summer and 

 autumn visited all quarters of the island, including the range 

 of the most western counties. In the course of three suc- 

 cessive years this bird has been met with. It has generally ap- 

 peared singly and during the cherry season, and has in several 

 instances been taken alive. 



In a letter from Dr. R. Graves of Dublin to a mutual friend in 

 Belfast, dated Nov. 1830, it is mentioned, that " among my late ac- 

 quisitions has been the Turdus roseus, shot in a cherry orchard in 

 the county of Clare [in the summer of 1830 ?] by one of my pupils, 

 whose father says he shot a bird of the same species thirty years ago 

 in the same orchard." Dr. Graves was at that period forming a col- 

 lection of native birds, and subsequently I saw the pastor alluded to, 

 together with other rare species which he possessed. In the first 

 volume Of the ' Magazine of Natural History,' p. 493, a letter ap- 

 peared from Mr. C. Adams Drew, dated Ennis, June 25, 1828, in 

 which the writer states that — " It is now above twenty years since, 

 on visiting my friend Mr. Lane at Roxton, I found him in his garden 

 endeavouring to shoot a strange bird which had for several days pre- 

 vious been making sad havoc among his cherries. After two or three 

 unsuccessful attempts on the part of Mr. Lane, the bird at last fell 



insect and vegetable food. They were shot together near Lough Neagh. 

 Clausilia rugosa and Limneus fossarius, with earth-worms, and seeds of many 

 kinds, have been found in others. 



[A starling which I once had was exceedingly fond of calcavella. After 

 having sipped a teaspoonful with avidity, he would dance in an ecstasy of 

 delight, repeating his own name, ' Jacob.' — R. T.] 



