194 Mr. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



minute beetles were perfect. M. Temminck describes the 

 female only as having the black streak over the eyes ; Mr. 

 Jenyns considers it common to both sexes: in nine specimens 

 of P. caudatus now before me, this marking is apparent, but 

 in some individuals is much better defined than in others ; in 

 one only of them the sex was observed, when it proved to be 

 a male bird : of this sex it may fairly be presumed are others 

 of the remaining eight individuals*. 



Bearded Titmouse, Parus biarmicus, Linn. — Of this bird 

 I have never seen a native individual, and can only repeat the 

 short notice of it as Irish communicated by me to the Zoolo- 

 gical Society of London in 1 834. " Mr. W. S. Wall, bird-pre- 

 server, Dublin, who is very conversant with British birds, as- 

 sures me that he received a specimen of this Parus from the 

 neighbourhood of the river Shannon a few years since." Zool. 

 Proc, 1834, p. 30. Bewick^s admirably characteristic wood- 

 cuts of birds are of constant reference with Mr. Wall. 



Bohemian Wax-Wing, Bombycivora yarrula, Temm. — 

 Mr. Templeton has said of this bird : " Sometimes seen about 

 Belfast, but more common in Tullamore Park, county Down ; 

 has been several times t shot in the county of Deny." Mag. 

 Nat. Hist., vol. i. p. 405, N.S. By a veteran sporting friend 

 the wax-wing has twice been obtained in the neighbourhood 

 of Belfast, and in both instances in wooded glens within the 

 district of the Falls. One of these birds was shot rather more 

 than twenty years ago, and the other considerably before that 

 time, and when severe frost and snow prevailed. Mr. R. Ball 

 informs me, that about 1820, one was killed at Castle Martyr, 

 in the county of Cork. "In the winter of 1822-23, a speci- 

 men of the Bombijcilla Bohemica, Briss., was found dead in 

 the woods of Burton Hall, in the county of Carlow." Zool. 

 Journ., vol. i. p. 590. Dr. J. D. Marshall has noticed an in- 

 dividual which was shot in the neighbourhood of Dublin in 



* Families of the long-tailed titmouse have frequently been seen by a 

 sporting friend on the wooded banks of the river Stincher in Ayrshire. 



f In the late Mr. Templeton 's MS. the word " once" is used in the place 

 of " several times " in the printed Catalogue. Another instance of the wax- 

 wing's occurrence in Ireland has been made known to me since the above was 

 written. The specimen was shot about the winter of 182,5-26, in the Castle- 

 reagh Hills, county of Down. 



