200 SYLVIADiE. 



were entirely filled with insects, chiefly minute Coleoptera; and the 

 fifth contained seeds of two or three kinds in addition to frag- 

 ments of stone. 



I shall transcribe some notes on this species just as they were made. 

 Bee, 1839. A regulus, in the collection of Mr. R. Ball, of Dublin, 

 obtained in that neighbourhood, attracted my attention by exhibiting a 

 white streak continuously from one eye to the other, and which is con- 

 sequently interposed between the black band bounding the crest and 

 the bill ; the crest was of the ordinary brilliant colour. On my return 

 home, a specimen of my own, killed near Belfast, was examined, and 

 displayed a similar white band, but not so conspicuously, between the 

 eyes : in all other characters these birds agreed with the B. cristatus of 

 authors. Several others were examined, but none exhibited the 

 white which possibly may be peculiar to adult males, as the brightness 

 of the crests in both individuals possessing it, indicated them to be : 

 the sex of all those referred to was unknown. At the end of Feb- 

 ruary, 1844, I obtained another specimen with the white marking, that 

 proved on dissection to be a male. None of the authors, to whose works 

 I have referred, describe these white bands in the B. cristatus. Tem- 

 minck, remarks that it is " sans aucun indice de bandes blanchatres," 

 vol. i. p. 229 : in which Jenyns follows him, p. 113 ; Montagu (Orn. 

 Diet.) ; Selby (p. 231) • Tarrell, Macgillivray, Jardine (in Brit. Birds), 

 say nothing of the white, disposed as above mentioned. The last author, 

 however, when comparing B. cristatus with B. reguloides, in his edition 

 of Wilson's American Ornithology, (vol. i. p. 127), incidentally observes, 

 that " the white streak above the eye is better marked " in the latter 

 than in the former species : — the extent of the white fine is not men- 

 tioned. Wilson, in describing the American bird, which he regarded as 

 B. cristatus, remarked, that " a fine of white passed round the frontlet, 

 extending over and beyond the eye on each side," ib. p. 130. This is 

 just the case in the individual to which attention has been particularly 

 called, but the various differential characters in the North American 

 and European birds are considered by Sir. Wm. Jardine, and other 

 ornithologists who have compared them, as decidedly separating the 

 species. A specimen of B. cristatus, from Italy — being one of a large 

 collection of admirably stuffed birds from that country, presented by 

 George Lenox Conyngham, Esq., to the Belfast Museum — exhibits 

 the white marking. 



