126 
MERULID^E. 
period of the year, and frequently in winter. Within the first fort- 
night of December, 1832, I heard it sing on the mornings of five 
different days; and on the 7th of the ensuing month two were 
heard at the same time. Under December the 2nd, 1838, it was 
noted at the Falls, that during the preceding eight days there had 
been most severe gales from the east and west, through the stormiest 
period of which — chiefly in the morning — this bird was heard 
singing, as is its habit during storms in the spring. On the 26th 
of December, 1845, it was heard singing at the Falls for the 
first time that season. 
As soon as the breeding season is over, these birds assemble 
either in families or large flocks — generally unassociated with 
other species — 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, fifty-four were reckoned in a flock in the garden at the 
Falls, where, during the month, they consumed almost the entire 
crop of raspberries. Several of the young birds were caught in 
rat-traps baited with this fruit. At the end of August the same 
year, they resorted in such numbers to an orchard, containing the 
most venerable fruit-trees in the vicinity of the town, that on one 
morning twenty-six, and on the next, seventeen of them were 
shot, and, with one or two exceptions, singly : late cherries were 
the attraction. Missel-thrushes were that year more than usually 
abundant. In 1833, the report of the gardener at the Falls was 
not, however, very satisfactory ; — that since they had eaten the 
greater part of the raspberries, and had cleared the trees of the 
late crop of cherries, he had not seen many. In the months 
of July and August in 1837 and 1838, but especially in the latter 
year, they were likewise most destructive to the raspberries here, and 
appeared in flocks consisting of forty or fifty individuals at a time. 
The injury was not confined to the mere loss of the fruit, but was 
increased by their weight breaking off the shoots on which it 
grew. Scarecrows attired after the fashion of men, and a rattle, 
such as is erected in fields of grain to frighten off feathered depre- 
dators, were used against them with some effect. I have been 
