192 Mr. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland, 



(In corps of one species, has always been to mc, but especially 

 in the wintry wood, a source of much attraction, and at such 

 times their shrill little notes, evidently more than sight, serves 

 to keep them together. The following note appears in my 

 journal under the date of November 19, 1^.5.3 : — Being in Colin 

 Glen to-day, I as a matter of course saw the gold-crested regu- 

 Lus and the blue and cole titmice in company. I was amused 

 on observing both species of Parus cling to the centre of the 

 under side of the leaves of the sycamore (Acer Pseudo-Pluta- 

 iius) still attached to the trees, and describe a circle with their 

 bills by picking with extreme rapidity all round them, during 

 which operation their weight brought not to the ground a 

 single leaf, though all were " sere and yellow/' The stomach 

 of one of these birds which came under my inspection at the 

 end of March, in addition to fragments of stone, contained 

 only seeds, 



Loxg-tailed Titmouse, Parus caudatus, Linn. — This 

 interesting bird, though not a well-known species in conse- 

 quence of its retired and wooded haunts, has long since been 

 recorded as indigenous to Ireland ; and as such, appears in 

 the county histories of Cork (Smith's) and Londonderry. 

 Rutly in his Natural History of Dublin remarks, that it " was 

 found in the county in the winter of 1768." It is at present 

 less known in the south than in the north ; over which it is 

 diffused, but not very plentifully. None of my correspond- 

 ents resident in the province of Munster have seen this bird 

 in its native haunts ; but in the vicinity of Cahir, county of 

 Tipperary, it is stated to occur. Mr. R. Ball observes, that 

 the long-tailed titmouse is not uncommon about Dublin, 

 though around Youghal, his former place of residence, he 

 never met with it. Of late years its numbers seem to have 

 increased considerably throughout the north*. To the late 

 Mr.Templeton it occurred only twice; but within several miles 

 around Belfast this titmouse has for some years past been 

 seen wherever there is a sufficiently great extent of wood, this 

 alone being apparently the essential requisite to the species ; 

 as it equally inhabits the plantations of the mountain glen, 



* At the same time their numbers fall greatly short of those of P. cceru- 

 leus, which in Mr. Sampson's catalogue of the Birds of Londonderry is said 

 to be less frequent than the P. caudatus. 



