226 anthidjE. 



The eggs in the same nest vary in colour occasionally, some being 

 greatly darker than others. The site of a nest seen by my informant 

 on the 15th of July, 1846, when the young were coming forward, 

 was the end of a plank forming part of a pile of timber, built against 

 the yard wall of a mill, at the outskirts of Belfast. The pied 

 wagtail built that season among some timber in the same yard. 

 The song of the titlark has rarely been heard about Belfast before 

 March, but, in a mild season (1 828), was so, as early as the 4th of 

 February. Mr. Poole, writing from the county of Wexford, 

 observes that he has known this species sing soon after the middle 

 of March, and commence nest-building in the first week of April; 

 the nest being composed of dry grasses, with some few black 

 horse-hairs for lining.* 



The stomach of one of these birds, examined by me in December, 

 was chiefly filled with minute coleopterous insects, but contained 

 also worms, minute fragments of brick, and two perfect specimens 

 of the shell Bulimus lubricus ; another was filled with oats and 

 barley ; a third, with seeds and insect larvae. 



The titlark has been already noticed as frequenting mountain 

 tracts of the very greatest elevation in Ireland ; — in the summer 

 and autumn it has occurred to me on very lofty summits in Scot- 

 land. About the top of Ben Lomond it was the only bird seen; 

 and frequented the almost equally high mountains at Aberarder, 

 Inverness-shire.t I have remarked it in summer, to be com- 

 mon — as may be expected — in the low grounds of Holland. 



ment which the long grass amongst which it was snugly sheltered, had previously 

 afforded." p. 138 (1846). 



* Belfast, September the 28tk, 1848. — A beautiful variety of the titlark came 

 under my notice. It was shot in a wild state, and sent to a taxidermist to preserve. 

 More than one half of its plumage was pure white. The top of the head and upper por- 

 tion were beautiful rich primrose-yellow, which colour, also, broadly edged the white 

 feathers of the back, and those of the upper surface of the wings and tail. The throat 

 and under side of the neck, were pure white. One wing was very handsome, owing 

 to the first four quills being pure white, the next four, of the usual dark colour, and 

 the several succeeding them, pure white. As usual in such cases, the feathers of the 

 opposite wing, were not similarly marked. One half of the tail-feathers were wholly 

 white, with the exception, as in the quills, of being broadly edged with primrose-yellow. 

 The only ordinary plumage remaining, except a few odd feathers, was on the belly, where 

 the deep buff, with its brownish markings appeared. The bill and legs were paler in hue 

 than usual. 



f "When ascending Snowdon, in the summer of 1835, neither this nor any other 

 bird appeared towards the summit. 



