APPENDIX. 467 



" P.S. — I sent this letter clown to Ballymena. Mr. and Mrs. Gihon 

 and Dr. Patrick assure me that the character given of Mr. Logan is 

 perfectly correct ; the letter was read to him, and he adheres, in every 

 particular, to liis former statement. He does not agree with me, how- 

 ever, in considering the robin to be easily tamed. The person who 

 keeps Mr. Gihon's gate (also a respectable person in lier line of life) 

 lias observed the bird for nine years (ever since she came into her pre- 

 sent post), and has no doubt of its identity for that lengtli of time." 



I regard this information on the age of the robin as very interesting, 

 from the circumstance that it is almost impossible to ascertain the age 

 attained by birds in a state of nature. 



A blackbird, noticed in Vol. I., was kept alive in a cage for twenty 

 or twenty-one years, and a caged goldfinch lived with a friend of mine 

 for seventeen years ; its age when first obtained being unknown. It 

 is common for the canary-tinch to live at least twelve years in confine- 

 ment, and a piping bullfinch, as mentioned at Vol. I. p. 365, was in 

 the possession of a friend for about twenty years, when I made a note 

 of the circumstance ; how much longer it lived I do not know, nor am 

 I aware of its age when he obtained it. In Vol. II., a silver pheasant 

 is mentioned as living in captivity for twenty-one or twenty-two years ; 

 and in Vol. III., a pintail duck thirteen years on a pond, where it was 

 at last wantonly killed. 



At an agricultural exhibition in Dungannon, a goose was exhibited 

 a few years ago, on account of the honourable age it had attained. It 

 has since died, aged forty-five years. 



A " common green parrot," brought to the north of Ireland about 

 the time of the battle of Waterloo — 1815 — died in the winter of 1848, 

 having been at least thirty-three years old ; — its age when procui'ed 

 was not known. 



An old lady left by will to Charles Telfair, Esq., a gentleman 

 honourably known in connexion with the Mauritius, a large sulphur- 

 crested cockatoo (Cacatna galerita), after having it, as believed, about 

 twenty-five years. It was a great pet with this gentleman for thirty- 

 eight years, until his decease, after which it was brought by his niece 

 to Belfast, and has now been here for nearly eighteen years. I went to 

 see the bird in March 18I<6, when it was in the highest health, and 

 I was told that for the fifty-one years at least, during wlucli it had been 

 in the possession of Mr. Telfair and its present owner, the cockatoo 



