76 OUR IRISH SONG BIRDS. 



Tipperary, and probably Cork." Sir Victor Brooke, 

 Colebrook, Fermanagh, thus writes to me of its occur- 

 rence : " It is a regular summer visitor in the north 

 of Ireland, but confined mostly to places where the 

 woods are natural, fir plantations not affording it the 

 indispensable thick, tangled undergrowth it loves. In 

 consequence of this, it is not common." 



Of late years, however, this bird has bred in several 

 places on the Clare side of Lough Derg, and has been 

 observed by Mr. Ussher in his own garden at Cappagh, 

 as well as at Dromana, Co. Waterford. Mr. Moffat 

 has met with it in Wexford. At Mr. Parker's demesne 

 of Castle Lough, on the Tipperary side of Lough Derg, 

 I heard in 1898 several Garden Warblers ; and Mr. 

 Parker assured me that as many as twelve pairs had 

 bred in the vicinity within the last few years. 



The Garden Warbler is a migratory bird, and arrives 

 in England before the end of April, the male, as is usual 

 with the Warblers, somewhat in advance of the female. 

 It is rare in the west of England, and is said to be absent 

 from Wales. Mr. Harting, however, thinks that it has 

 probably been overlooked by the comparatively few 

 naturalists to be found in the latter country. The same 

 writer, in his Sketches of Bird Life, quotes the following 

 estimate of its song, by Mr. Robert Gray, who frequently 

 heard it in Scotland : 



" In the sheltered and wooded districts of the midland 

 and southern counties it is one of the most attractive 

 songsters, tuning its loud and gleeful pipe on the top of 

 some fruit-tree an hour or two after daybreak, and again 

 about dusk. These love-notes, however, are not of long 

 continuance, for the bird becomes silent after the young 



