Mr. W. Thompson on the Birds of Ireland. 



221 



11. SCARABUS PYRAMID ATUS, Nobis, n. S. 



The Scarabus pyramidatus is the most oblong of the different forms ; 

 the mouth is of a yellowish colour and highly enamelled. (Fig. 12.) 



I am indebted to the Rev. Mr. Stainforth and Wm. Walton, 

 Esq., for the use of the specimens which have furnished the 

 foregoing notices. 



Lovell Reeve. 



8 King William Street, Strand. 



XXVII.— The Birds of Ireland. By Wm. Thompson, Esq., 

 Vice-Pres. Nat. Hist. Society of Belfast. 



[Continued from p. 145.] 



No. 12. Families Cuculidce, Meropidce, Haley onidce. 



The Cuckoo, Cuculus canorus, Linn., is well known through- 

 out Ireland as a regular spring visitant. 



It has been remarked by Sir Wm. Jardine and Mr. Macgillivray, 

 with respect to Scotland, that localities of almost every character 

 are visited by this bird, and so it is in Ireland, the wild and treeless 

 wastes on different portions of the western coast equally attracting it 

 with the most highly cultivated and best wooded districts. It was 

 remarked by Mr. R. Ball, when visiting the largest of the South 

 Islands of Arran (near the entrance to Galway Bay), in company 

 with the late lamented Dean of St. Patrick's, in June 1835, that 

 cuckoos were particularly abundant : — the whole surface of the 

 island is either rocky or covered with a short rich pasture, and is 

 altogether destitute of trees, except at one spot> where some half- 

 dozen appear. 



The vernal appearance of the cuckoo in the north of Ireland is as 

 early as some authors report it to be in the south of England. My 

 notes bear witness to its arrival in the neighbourhood of Belfast in 

 seven consecutive years — from 1832 to 1838 — as follows : April 

 16th, 20th, 21st, 10th, 22nd, 26th, 30th,— and on the 23rd in 1840 *. 

 The adult birds generally leave the north of the island at the end of 

 June : on the 1st July 1832 I saw two, and heard their call, near 

 Dunfanaghy, in the north-west of the county of Donegal. The stay 

 of the cuckoo was remarkably prolonged in 1838, — in which year the 

 period of their arrival was also later than ever known — one having 

 been heard at " The Falls " near Belfast on the 7th July. The young 

 birds of the year generally remain till towards the end of August ; 

 so late as the 27th of which month they have been observed in the 

 county of Antrim. The Bishop of Norwich, in his ' Familiar History 

 of Birds,' records an instance of about forty cuckoos being congre- 

 gated in a garden in the county of Down from the 18th to the 22nd 



* In McSkimmin's 1 History of Carrickfergus' (1823) it is remarked that 

 During 20 years' observation the earliest it has been heard calling was 

 the 17th of April, and the latest the 30th of June." 



