Ii8 The Irish Nahtralisf. November, 



7. The later song in any of the brood periods will be 

 due to unmated males, as in (3). 



Autumn song in my district is practically nil ; in England 

 it is considerable. Should we compare it with residual 

 song or is it, as I have seen suggested, the real beginning 

 of the spring song ? 



I had found it comparatively easy to study our less 

 abundant but good singing species, such as warblers. 

 Paragraph (i) and (2) above generally applied to them, and 

 Mr. Howard (" Territory in Bird Life ") incidentally implies 

 that it applies to a number of warblers which we have not 

 got in Ireland. But I had left for my more recent studies 

 Thrushes, Blackbirds, Chafhnches, Wrens, Robins, Hedge- 

 Sparrows. The Wrens and Robins are puzzlers, as they 

 sing nearly all the year round. I am not prepared to say 

 much more about them, (see below). The Hedge-sparrows 

 are not great singers here, and I have not given them 

 enough individual attention to be able to say anything 

 about relation of song to nesting, but I give other notes 

 below. The others — Chaffinch, Blackbird, Song-Thrush, 

 are abundant and prominent and come within the purview 

 and interest of the ordinary person. We may add the 

 Missel Thrush. I gave my season's record for them last 

 year, and herein I give the record for this year. Each 

 record is a faithful abstract of each year's notes, but the 

 resulting parallel is to me astonishing. I am not going to 

 weary the reader by detailing the similarities. 



In dealing with Thrushes' and Blackbirds' song, 

 observations would lose most of their value, if they did not 

 include the song at the dusk of morning and evening. 

 Thus to the ordinary sleepy human being the former is 

 mainly a blank. I shall abbreviate b}/ using d.d.m. and 

 d.d.e. for dark dusk of morning and evening respectivel}^ 

 And d.e. means not so late as d.d.e. Where I use the 

 expression " day song " I mean song excluding the dusk song 

 and mainly between say 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. (summer time). 



An important point of view in considering Thrushes, 

 Chaffinches and Blackbirds is that much day song points 

 to an unmated bird ; though the May Blackbirds are 

 doubtful. 



