Natural History oj Ireland. 4.'39 



tains, &c. in Down, and the range of Belfast mountains and others 

 in Antrim. 



Not later than the middle of April it appears about Belfast, ge- 

 nerally departs towards the end of September, but occasionally re- 

 mains until the middle of October. Here commonly one, but in 

 some instances two pairs, frequent the wildest and most rocky parts 

 of every glen or ravine that intersects the chain of mountains to the 

 westward of the town. Within the distance of five or six miles 

 there are as many of these localities resorted to by them, and here 

 only are they found, except at the periods of their migratory move- 

 ments. When walking in the Crow Glen, one of these haunts, 

 on a summer evening in 1829, with my pointer dog some paces in 

 advance, it was amusing to see two ring-ouzels pursuing him with 

 their loudest cries, and approaching so near as to strike the air 

 violently within a few inches of his head. Many an earnest and ex- 

 pressive look the dog gave me, as if desirous of advice in his extre- 

 mity, but finding it all in vain, at length ran up to me, when they, 

 nothing daunted, followed, and gave myself as well as two friends 

 who were with me, the same salute, flying so near that we could 

 almost have struck them with our hands. At the beginning of the 

 onset, a female bird appeared, as if inciting the males forward, and 

 remained so long as they were attaining the highest pitch of violence, 

 and then like another heroine, retired to a commanding eminence 

 to be " spectatress of the fight." Had they been a pair of birds 

 protecting their young, or assuming similar artifice to the lapwing 

 in withdrawing attention from their nest, in which the ring-ouzel is 

 also said to be an adept, the circumstance would perhaps be un- 

 worthy of notice, but they were both male birds in adult plumage. 

 The chase of the dog was continued a considerable way down the 

 glen, and for fully fifteen or twenty minutes. 



The nest of the ring-ouzel is placed on the ground, and generally 

 on the side either of the shelving or precipitous banks of our moun- 

 tain streams. One of those found by a relative before alluded to, 

 was artfully set beneath an overhanging bank, whose mosses, of 

 which materials the nest was composed, entirely concealed it from 

 ordinary view. 



The stomach of a ring-ouzel which I obtained in the middle of 

 September last, exhibited a quantity of the larvae of insects of seve- 

 ral kinds. In the north this species is known by the name of " rock 

 or mountain blackbird." 



Golden Oriole— ^Oriolus galbula, Linn. — A bird described to 



