Mr. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland, 21 



Killaloe ; by Mr. Robert Davis, jun., to be not uncommon 

 about Clonmel ; and by Mr. T. F. Neligan, to be a regular 

 summer migrant to the county of Kerry. 



Its song commences on arrival, and generally ceases 

 early in the month of July. From its habits, and the gro- 

 tesquely earnest appearance that the erected feathers on 

 the crown of its head and the distended throat impart when 

 singing, it is one of the most interesting of our warblers. 

 When on one of its harmonious flights, the whitethroat, 

 though generally so, is not always constant to returning to the 

 same place again. I have seen it rise from a low bush, and 

 singing in its upward and irregular flight, alight on a leafless 

 tree at some little distance, and there continue to pour forth 

 its notes without intermission, or as if it had been perched in 

 one place all the time. Under the date of June 4, 1833, a 

 note appears in my journal that two accurately judging friends 

 had several times of late heard the whitethroat imitate the 

 songs of other birds much after the manner of the sedge 

 warbler- 



Early in July, 183/, a nest was discovered at the " Falls," 

 within about ten paces of a public highway, and double this 

 distance from an occupied dwelling-house. It was elevated 

 about a foot above the ground, in a sloe-bush, and concealed 

 by the growing grass of a late meadow : at this late period it 

 contained eggs. Again, on July 11, 1833, when walking at 

 the side of the river Bann, near Coleraine, a whitethroat, 

 perched upon a hedge, and with, a caterpillar in its bill, de- 

 noting the vicinity of its nestlings, permitted my approach 

 within about two paces, all the time keeping a great uproar, 

 which was a mere repetition of the word churr. This species 

 seems partial to placing its nest in thorny plants ; thus in the 

 latter instance it was at the base of a whitethorn hedge, in 

 the former in a sloe. In brambles it most commonly occurs 

 here, and occasionally in the wild rose : grasses generally 

 serve to screen it from observation*. 



* Sylvia Curruca, Lath. In a note added by the late Mr. Templeton to 

 a copy of Dr. Patrick Brown's " Catalogue of the Birds of Ireland," pub- 

 lished in Exshaw's Magazine for 1772, I find, — " Motacilla Curruca, 

 White-bellied Nightingale, seen about Ballydangan in May 1773, Brown." 

 In the Catalogue the Mot. Sylvia, or Syl. cinerea, appears. Several of my 



