BLACK REDSTART. 335 



says that, so early as 1818, Mr. Ball saw it about Youghal 

 in Ireland, and in the course of that and the next few years 

 ten examples were seen, of which five were killed in one 

 autumn. Thompson further mentions its occurrence more 

 recently in the same locality as well as in others on the 

 west coast, and the capture of one on board ship between 

 Glasgow and Belfast. . In 1855 Mr. Bilson told the Editor 

 of one obtained in Galway ; and Mr. Blake-Knox, who has 

 recorded the appearance of several examples near Dublin, 

 kindly furnishes the information that it comes every winter 

 to that part of Ireland, sometimes in companies of from 

 five to twenty, and that he has seen ten or more together 

 catching flies against a sunny wall. 



This bird, Captain Feilden says, has lately been observed 

 in the Faeroes by Herr H. C. Miiller, and Herr Preyer 

 believes he saw one in Iceland in June 1860. It has 

 occurred in Heligoland, and one was shot by Herr Collett 

 at Christiania, in Norway, in April, 1864. Four examples 

 have been observed in Sweden, all in the southern or middle 

 provinces, and it is said to have been met with at Greenaa in 

 Denmark. It is rare in Holstein, but commoner in Lauen- 

 burg, and occurs in most of the towns, and here and there 

 in the villages of Mecklenburg, but is never very numerous. 

 In the whole of North Germany, Dr. Borggreve says it is 

 strictly a summer-bird, and within the last ten years has 

 greatly extended its range towards the east, so as now to reach 

 Prussia proper. Gloger, forty years ago, noticed that in 

 Silesia its numbers were visibly increasing, and Zawadzki 

 makes the same remark as regards the Carpathians. In 

 Kussia, Pallas only obtained it once, at Simbirsk on the 

 Volga ; but it was observed by Capt. Blakiston and Major 

 Irby in the Crimea, and Me'netries met with it in the 

 Caucasus. It frequents Asia Minor, at least in winter, and 

 in Palestine is conspicuously common and resident. In 

 North-eastern Africa, according to Dr. von Heuglin, it is 

 a not very common migrant, and, though reaching Southern 

 Nubia, does not go so far as the common Redstart. It is 

 not uncommon in Tunis, is said to breed in Algeria, and 



