260 FltlNGILLID^E. 



thorn berry, an operation requiring a strong exertion of the human jaw. On dis- 

 section, I found one of these stones thus cracked in one of their stomachs, with the 

 fresh kernel still in one half of the shell. A few hours after they were dead, I took 

 a strong pair of scissors and a knife, using them as levers, to force open their bills, 

 and found the muscle had so firmly contracted, that to effect my pm-pose I had to 

 use a wedge ; a forcible proof, it will be allowed, of their strength. Their bills alone, 

 however, are formed as a pair of nut-crackers, as the muscles of the neck, unlike 

 those of the wood-peckers, are not strong. Not so with the wings, which are fur- 

 nished with such strong muscles, that they could almost vie with the pigeon in 

 strength and rapidity of flight. They would, therefore, unlike many of our birds of 

 passage, be well calculated for distant migrations." * 



Dubourdieu, in his survey of the County of Antrim, observes 

 respecting Lough Neagh, that "the grosbeak (Loxia), like a 

 green linnet, but larger, often resorts to the wooded farms in its 

 neighbourhood in winter." The crossbill, and not the species under 

 consideration, is most probably here alluded to. That the latter 

 cannot be so, at least correctly, seems to me sufficiently evident 

 from the circumstance, that Mr. Templeton knew and corresponded 

 with Dubourdieu, and in his catalogue of our native birds, he 

 makes no mention whatever of the grosbeak. On the 8th of 

 March, 1845, the gamekeeper at Tollymore Park, county of Down, 

 sent me a detailed and excellent description of two birds, belonging 

 to a species unknown to him, which had been lately shot there. 

 They proved to be grosbeaks. He stated that there were one or 

 two more still in the park, and that they fed on the stones of the 

 laurel trees. At the end of March, 1846, the hawfinch was again 

 seen there. 



The Phcenix Park, Dublin, where there are woods of venerable 

 hawthorns, has, above all places in Ireland, produced examples 

 of this bird. Notes of its occurrence there in the following 

 years are before me : — in 1828-29, when the first of the season 

 was obtained on the 6th of November, and about a dozen more 

 at various dates through the winter ;f in 1830 (?), numbers 

 were killed and supplied to a bird-preserver in the metropolis at 

 the rate of a shilling each; in 1831, the Rev. T. Knox records 

 three individuals from this locality; % m 1832-33 several were 



* Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. v. p. 582. f Dr. J. D. Marshall. 



% Ibid, p. 734. 



