432 Contributions to the 



similar depredation, but of a minor degree of turpitude, was com- 

 mitted last summer ; a narrow piece of net, a yard in length, having 

 been carried off when bleaching, and afterwards, in my presence, 

 found composing part of the nest of a bird of this species. 



As soon as the breeding season is over, these birds assemble either 

 in families, or large flocks, and are very destructive to the fruit in 

 certain gardens and orchards about Belfast. On the 5th of July, I 

 once saw two or three families congregated ; and on the 1st of August 

 1832, my friend at the " Falls" reckoned fifty-four in a flock at 

 his garden, where, during the month, they consumed almost the en- 

 tire crop of raspberries. Several of the young birds were caught in 

 rat-traps baited with this fruit. Towards the end of August this 

 same year, they resorted in such numbers to an orchard, containing 

 the most venerable fruit-trees in the neighbourhood, that on one 

 morning, twenty-six, and on the next, seventeen of them were shot, 

 and, with one or two exceptions, singly : here late cherries were the 

 attraction. Missel-thrushes were this year more than ordinarily 

 abundant. In 1833, the report of the gardener at the." Falls" was 

 not, however, very satisfactory — that since they had eaten the great- 

 er part of the raspberries, and had cleared the trees of the late crop 

 of cherries, he had not seen many. I have been thus particular, as 

 similar depredations on the part of this species have not been related 

 in any ornithological work with which I am acquainted. In his 

 " History of Selborne," White remarks, that " missel-thrushes do 

 not destroy the fruit in our gardens like other species of Turdi," 

 and on this passage not one of his numerous commentators has made 

 an observation. In an anonymous contribution to the Magazine of 

 Natural History, facts similar to these I have brought forward are 

 recorded. (Vol. iv. p. 184.) 



The stomashs of two individuals, examined by me in January 

 and September, contained the remains of coleopterous insects in ad- 

 dition to vegetable food. 



The Fieldfare — Turdus pilaris, Linn — Is a regular winter 

 visitant to Ireland, appearing in the north towards the end of Octo- 

 ber. Its departure is occasionally prolonged until a late period. 

 On the evening of the 7th May 1836, my friend, William Sinclaire, 

 Esq. at his residence, " The Falls", near Belfast, observed a large 

 flock migrating in a north-east direction, and heard them calling as 

 they passed overhead. He considers that they were on their way 

 from some distant locality, as none had been seen in his neighbour- 

 hood for some time before ; but when the season was as far advanced 



