3968 Dublin Natural History Society. 



" This ends all I have been able to collect concerning the songsters of Donnybrook 

 individually. The only other songsters I have met with are the goldfinch, which only 

 occasionally visits Donnybrook, or at least those parts to which I have access : I have 

 however heard him singing in August and September in the counties Kilkenny and 

 Waterford, and in early spring about the brakes of Ballinascorney. The bulfinch has 

 only occurred to me once in Donnybrook, and then in the depth of winter. The ring 

 ousel 1 have heard singing in May, at Lough Bray, county Wicklow ; the song harsh, 

 short, and delivered from the top of a rock : I never met with them in the county 

 Dublin save once, in a stream-glen in the hills between Killakee and Dundrum. The 

 redwing and fieldfare, although recording here iu early spring, I have never heard 

 singing.'' 



In the second portion of his paper Mr. Kinahan made some remarks on the natu- 

 ral and other causes which appear to control and influence the duration of the song of 

 birds, which he prefaced by a few observations on various irregularities in their man- 

 ner and time of singing. These he classed under three heads, giving examples of each 

 from his note-book : — 1. Night-warblers, including the sedge-warbler, robin, song- 

 thrush, blackbird, dipper and chaffinch. 2. Birds whose females sing, including the 

 skylark and titlark. 3. Birds which sometimes sing with closed mandibles, as the ro- 

 bin and lesser willow-wren. The positions chosen by birds while singing were next 

 noticed, as well as the periods of the day when they commence their song, all which 

 appear to vary greatly according to season and the state of the weather; but as a ge- 

 neral rule, however, he finds that " birds sing oftener and more regularly in the even- 

 ing in the spring and autumn than in either summer or winter." To prove that no 

 month is utterly songless, Mr. Kinahan gives the following analysis, showing the num- 

 ber of birds out of the total of forty-one songsters that he has heard singing in each 

 month in Ireland : — January, 16 ; February, 25 ; March, 32 (including two summer 

 visitants) ; April, 37 (summer visitants 7) ; May, 39 (summer visitants 8) ; June, 38 

 (summer visitants 9) ; July, 18 (8 of which were summer visitants) ; August, 14 (sum- 

 mer visitants 3); September, 8 (summer migrants 3); October, 9 (summer visitant 1); 

 November, 10 (3 very regular) ; December, 11. After adverting to the influence of 

 the weather, and the abundance or scarcity of food as tending to regulate the com- 

 mencement and continuance of the song of birds, Mr. Kinahan thus concludes his 

 interesting paper : — 



" That the song of birds was the language of love, and as such only to be heard 

 during the pairing season, is an old theory, but not the less incorrect for its age, as, 

 indeed, the foregoing notes have amply shown ; for out of many species which we find 

 singing after July, but three, or four at most, build second nests. I believe myself 

 that song is mainly, if not entirely, dependant on a joyousness and lightness of spirit, 

 whether produced from genial weather, abundance of food, love, or any other cause ; 

 and, in fact, that a bird sings under the influence of the same natural impulse as that 

 which causes the yelping of the gambolling pup, or the whistle of the idle schoolboy. 

 Witness birds in confinement; supply them with sufficiency of warmth and light, and 

 you may have them singing at any period of the year, and by day or night ; the thrush 

 singing as clearly and sweetly by the glare of the gas lamp as in the bright sunshine." 



