126 merulim;. 



period of the year, and frequently in winter. Within the first fort- 

 night of December, 1832, I heard it sing on the mornings of five 

 different days ; and on the 7th of the ensuing month two were 

 heard at the same time. Under December the 2nd, 1838, it was 

 noted at the Falls, that during the preceding eight days there had 

 been most severe gales from the east and west, through the stormiest 

 period of winch — chiefly in the morning — this bird was heard 

 singing, as is its habit during storms in the spring. On the 26th 

 of December, 1845, it was heard singing at the Palls for the 

 first time that season. 



As soon as the breeding season is over, these birds assemble 

 either in families or large flocks — generally unassociated with 

 other species — and are very destructive to the fruit in certain 

 gardens and orchards about Belfast. On the 5th of July, I once 

 saw two or three families congregated ; and on the 1st of August, 

 1832, fifty -four were reckoned in a flock in the garden at the 

 Palls, where, during the month, they consumed almost the entire 

 crop of raspberries. Several of the young birds were caught in 

 rat-traps baited with this fruit. At the end of August the same 

 year, they resorted in such numbers to an orchard, containing the 

 most venerable fruit-trees in the vicinity of the town, that on one 

 morning twenty-six, and on the next, seventeen of them were 

 shot, and, with one or two exceptions, singly : late cherries were 

 the attraction. Missel-thrushes were that year more than usually 

 abundant. In 1833, the report of the gardener at the Palls was 

 not, however, very satisfactory ; — that since they had eaten the 

 greater part of the raspberries, and had cleared the trees of the 

 late crop of cherries, he had not seen many. In the months 

 of July and August in 1837 and 1838, but especially in the latter 

 year, they were likewise most destructive to the raspberries here, and 

 appeared in flocks consisting of forty or fifty individuals at a time. 

 The injury was not confined^ to the mere loss of the fruit, but was 

 increased by their weight breaking off the shoots on which it 

 grew. Scarecrows attired after the fashion of men, and a rattle, 

 such as is erected in fields of grain to frighten off feathered depre- 

 dators, were used against them with some effect. I have been 



