ii8 



The Irish Naturalist. 



October, 



census of my own area, corroborated by general observation, 

 the number of singers at this time of year is only one-third 

 of those at the beginning of May (see below). The January 

 song is mainly before lo a.m. During the first three weeks 

 of February the song changed from day song to be altogether 

 evening song, but by the end of that time even this song 

 had gone off as well as any early morning song. There 

 were plenty of Blackbirds singing in the dark dusk of 

 evening now but no Thrushes. All those Thrushes which 

 used to sing and had ceased were now easily recognisable 

 in pairs settled in their respective territories. I was dealing 

 at that time with half a dozen such, and their subsequent 

 nests, in my own area, and one or two elsew^here. There 

 was no Thrush song inside my area from February 26th 

 to the beginning of April. At the beginning of March 

 however, a few new birds began to sing in the country 

 round me, but this only lasted a few days. Thus there 

 was practically no song anywhere to the end of March. 

 In February the song in decadence seems to change first to 

 evening, then to a few notes at dark dusk, and then 

 ceases. 



My observation of the individual pairs of that period 

 is that their song entirely ceases very shortly after pairing. 

 The normal early nests here are laid up in the last days of 

 March. Song had ceased at least a month before. At the 

 end of March there was also little Blackbird song (see 

 above) and general Chaffinch song had waned, so that 

 altogether there was a remarkable dearth of song then. 



During the first week of April new singers are noted, 

 in new sites, but in no considerable quantity till after the 

 middle of April. From the latter time song seems to be 

 confined entirely to evening [i.e. say from three hours to 

 two hours before sunset) or to the two dusk choruses of 

 morning and night. Such song is now all Thrushes' as 

 compared with the middle of March, when these choruses 

 were in full swing but all Blackbirds'. There is a regular 

 gap between the evening and dusk song, and the latter 

 has the more singers, while at dark dusk there is a sudden 

 further increase of singers. This is a regular routine. 



Eight new birds had started in my own area between 



