120 MERTJL1D.*. 



fully the size of a man's head, composed externally of moss, 

 and placed on the shelf of a rock rising from the river, which 

 flowed about seven feet beneath. The aperture was close to the 

 base, the thickness of the nest merely being between it and the 

 rock ; it was eaved so, that from particular points of view only 

 could any entrance be observed. This bird breeds in the glens 

 around Clonmel;* and apertures in the arches of the bridge, over 

 the Shannon at Killaloe, are occupied by its nests.f Thus, where 

 there is a deficiency of natural breeding-places, the water ouzel 

 can accommodate itself to artificial structures. 



As several authors, to whose works I have referred, differ in 

 their descriptions of the colour of the legs of this species, it may 

 be remarked, that two mature specimens killed on the 25th July, 

 had the entire front (and it only) of the tarsi and upper side of 

 the toes of a whitish colour, like the clouded or opaque part of a 

 quill ; all the rest was blackish. 



The stomachs ^f two individuals I examined, in the month of 

 December, contained the remains of the larvae of aquatic Coleop- 

 tera, and one in January exhibited the fragments of insects only. 

 The stomach of one looked to in October was entirely filled with 

 the remains of Crustacea, excepting two full-sized dorsal spines of 

 a three-spined stickleback ( Gasterosteus) . A person who has had 

 ample opportunities of observing the species, states, that from 

 shallow water he has often seen it bring the larvae of Phryganea, 

 and break their cases on a stone to get at the contained animal. 

 Sir Wm, Jardine, in the second volume of his British Birds, gives 

 a full and admirable account of this species, as Mr. Macgillivray 

 likewise does in his second volume ; the latter description, how- 

 ever, being marred by unnecessary reflections on other ornitho- 

 logists. Both these authors state, that they never found the ova 

 of fish in water ouzels dissected by them, nor do they think 

 that these birds ever seek or use such food, although, from an 

 ignorant belief that they destroy the ova of the salmon, they are 

 unrelentingly persecuted in some parts of the north of Scotland. 



* Mr. R. Davis. f Rev. T. Kiiox. 



