186 



Scienti/iG Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



size of the two birds, Neocorys being slightly the smaller, but, 

 from the greater stoutness of the body, it exceeds its relative in 

 weight. I append a table showing the average measurements of 

 twenty individuals of each species : — 



Mniotilta vaeia (Linn.) Black and White Creeper. — This is 

 a summer visitor to our district, but is everywhere so scarce that 

 I obtained but three examples, occurring in March, July, and Sep- 

 tember, and it was during the latter month alone that I observed 

 them in any numbers, when on migration in company with other 

 warblers and titmice. They are expert climbers, creeping with 

 ease up the trunk and about the branches of trees, and keep more 

 to the open woods and creeks than to the dense thickets. 



Protonotaria citrea (Bodd.) Golden Swamp Warbler. — 

 Arriving during April, this species is by no means uncommon in 

 suitable situations during the summer months. Evincing a 

 decided preference for the neighbourhood of water, a few pairs 

 may be found any day in the low, damp thickets along the banks 

 of the river, and especially about the margins of the muddy 

 ponds. It is an unsociable bird, generally solitary, or, at most, 

 in pairs, even during the fall, when most species are educating 

 their young, and is unsuspicious, taking slight notice of an in- 

 truder, and so little heeding the discharge of a gun that I have 

 known them on several occasions fly up to the sportsman and 

 alight on a tree beside him, as if impelled by curiosity. It is slow 

 in all its motions, hopping from branch to branch with a marked 

 deliberation unusual among the members of this sprightly family ; 

 and it is also exceptionally silent, rarely uttering more than a 

 single clear note. Its food consists entirely of insects, which it 

 seeks for both upon the lower branches of trees and bushes and 

 on the ground. None remain with us after the end of August. 



Helon^a swainsoni, Aud. Siuainson's Swamp Warbler. — 

 I obtained a specimen of this rare warbler — the only one as yet 

 recorded from the State — on the 24th August, 1880, upon the 

 banks of a small pond in the river bottom. When first observed 



