Mr. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 15 



are made is about a foot and a half in length, eight inches in 

 breadth, and rive inches in thickness. In wet days the male 

 bird kept much within the loft and sang there. The carpen- 

 ter tells me that one only flew in with the leaves and collected 

 the shavings ; this individual he knew from its wanting the 

 tail : it made very free with his pot of grease, and picked from 

 it while in his hand. On another occasion the nest was built 

 in the joist-hole of a wall, in the process of completing which it 

 was necessary to remove it, when it was placed in an adjoin- 

 ing aperture of the same kind. The parent bird after looking 

 for some time about the spot where the nest had been, rejoined 

 her young — of which one was killed by falling out of its do- 

 micile in the course of removal — in their new situation ; and 

 here she did not remain undisturbed, as in the breaking out of 

 a door within a foot of the nest the mortar and stones fell pe- 

 rilously near her, but she nevertheless deserted not her young." 

 At Fort William, the seat of a relative, the following occurred. 

 In a pantry, the window of which was kept open during the 

 day, one of these birds constructed its nest early in the sum- 

 mer. The place selected was the corner of a moderately high 

 shelf among bottles, which being four-sided gave the nest the 

 singular appearance exteriorly of a perfect square. It was 

 made of moss, and lined with a little black hair, and on the 

 side that was exposed to view, and that only, were dead beech 

 leaves. When any article near the nest was sought for, the 

 bird, instead of flying out of the window as might be expected, 

 alighted on the floor, and there patiently waited until the cause 

 of disturbance was over, and then immediately returned to its 

 nest again. Here five eggs were laid, which, after being incu- 

 bated for the long period of about five weeks without any suc- 

 cess, were forsaken. The room above this pantry was occu- 

 pied as a bird-stuffing apartment ; and after the redbreast had 

 deserted the lower story, a bird of this species, and doubtless 

 the same individual, visited it daily, and was as often expelled 

 in the fear that the specimens might in consequence be inju- 

 red. Finding that expulsion was of no avail, recourse was had 

 to a novel and rather comical expedient. My friend had a 

 short time before received a collection of stuffed Asiatic qua- 

 drupeds, and of these he selected the most fierce-looking Car- 



