Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 355 



to be found at all, or only as an occasional visitant. Of all our 

 indigenous birds, the beautiful goldfinch seems the most ca- 

 pricious. In one instance it is known to me as entirely de- 

 serting a part of the country which it had regularly fre- 

 quented, after a small portion of a mountain-side covered with 

 thistles from time immemorial had been reclaimed and planted 

 with forest trees. From other localities too, I have known the 

 goldfinch without any apparent reason flit away, and, unlike 

 many other birds, never revisit the place of its nativity. As 

 the country around Belfast has become more populous, their 

 number has decreased. The romantic neighbourhood of Cush- 

 endall, about forty miles distant, is now their stronghold in 

 this quartei', and there the goldfinch is the most common bird. 

 It is pleasing to witness the social manner in which they feed, 

 several being often engaged regaling upon the seed of a single 

 thistle ; and on a moderate-sized plant of the more humble 

 knapweed [Centaur ea nigra) I have seen four of them thus 

 occupied at the same time — the seed of the ragwort or rag- 

 weed (as it is called in the north of Ireland) is a favourite 

 food. They are very easily alarmed when feeding, and fly off 

 hurriedly in little companies uttering their pleasing and lively 

 call. 



Although this species will frequent gardens and well-kejjt 

 grounds, especially for the purpose of nestling, it seems to 

 prefer such parts of the country as are in some degree wild, 

 and its visits to the farm are certainly not to be considered as 

 complimentary to the owner, for when most out of order and 

 run to weeds it is most attractive to the goldfinch. During 

 snow, these birds have been taken in trap-cages baited with 

 flax-seed, and sometimes in company with chaffinches. For 

 two years successively, goldfinches nestled in a cherry-tree 

 within ten paces of a house in which I lived, when they and 

 their young (in each instance four in number) proved most 

 interesting — I have seen their nests in willows and pear-trees, 

 and in one of the latter of moderate size, the goldfinch and 

 thrush at the same reared their broods, both of which in due 

 time escaped in safety. One correspondent mentions his ha- 

 ving had their nests in the elder, and another, in noticing apple- 

 trees in which he had observed them, remarks that they were 

 generally placed on the outer portion of the branches. 



In addition to seeds of various kinds found in the sto- 

 machs of examples killed in the months of January and Fe- 

 bruary, I have obsen'ed the remains of coleopterous insects, 

 but only very rarely. The goldfinch is treated of in a very in- 

 teresting manner in the ' Journal of a Naturalist.' 



Siskin, FringiUa spiuus, Linn. — Templcton, in his ' Cata- 



2 yV 2 



