44-7 



SHORT COMMUNICATIONS. 



Birds. — The Honey Buzzard (Fdlco apivorusL.) in Ireland; 

 and some Facts on its Habits, — At a meeting, on July 23. 1833, 

 of the council of the Belfast Natural History Society, Mr. 

 Wm. Thompson, V. P., stated, that, on the 11th of June last, 

 a fine female specimen of the honey buzzard, which is unre- 

 corded as having ever before occurred in Ireland, was, when 

 in company with a similar bird, most probably the female, 

 shot by Robert George Bomford, Esq., in his demesne of 

 Annadale, in the vicinity of Belfast ; and who, on being in- 

 formed of the rarity of the bird, had most handsomely pre- 

 sented it to the Belfast museum. Mr. Thompson, who saw 

 the specimen when fresh, related that the bill and forehead 

 were covered with cow-dung, in such a manner as to lead him 

 to suppose the bird had, in that excrement, been searching 

 for insects. On examination of the stomach, which was quite 

 full, it was found to contain a few of the larvae, and some 

 fragments of perfect coleopterous insects ; several whitish- 

 coloured hairy caterpillars ; the pupae of a butterfly, and also 

 of the six-spot burnet moth (2ygae v na filipendulae) ; together 

 with some pieces of grass, which, it is presumed, were taken 

 in with the last-named insect, it being on the stalks of grass 

 that the pupae of this species of 2ygae N na are chiefly found. 

 Mr. Thompson remarked that this insectivorous food must, to 

 the honey buzzard, have been a matter of choice, the bird 

 being in the full vigour of its powers, and the district in which 

 it was killed abounding with such birds as, were they its 

 wished-for prey, it might have easily captured and destroyed. 



[The Chiffchaff is the Sylvia riifa of Latham, not the Sylvia 

 hippoldis of Bechstein."] — Mr. Thompson likewise mentioned, 

 that, having read an article in the second number of the Field 

 Naturalist's Magazine, from the pen of the editor, entitled 

 " The chiffchaff proved to be the Sylvia rufa, hitherto con- 

 founded with the S. hippolais of the Continent," he had this 

 day visited Colin Glen, the principal haunt of the chiffchaff in 

 the neighbourhood of Belfast, for the purpose of obtaining the 

 bird, and comparing it with the description there given. On 

 this occasion, a specimen was fortunately procured; which, on 

 examination, proved, as Mr. Thompson had anticipated from 

 Professor Rennie's admirable elucidation of the species Sylvia 



