THE FIELDFARE. 
131 
birds at Ballochmorrie, in Ayrshire; and when at Dunskey, Wigton- 
shire, in the middle of October of the following year, I observed 
large flocks. 
This bird remains until a late period in spring. In seven diffe- 
rent years, flocks were observed about Belfast, from the middle to 
the end of April, and continued until the latter period in two 
years (1834 and 1842), although there had been some weeks of 
fine summer-like weather previously, which we might imagine 
would have tempted them to move northwards. 
On the evening of the 7th of May, 1836, Mr. W. Sinclaire, 
when at his residence, the Balls, observed a large flock migrating 
in a north-east direction, and heard them calling as they passed 
overhead. They were considered to be on their way from some dis- 
tant locality, as none had been seen in his neighbourhood for some 
time before. But when the season was as far advanced in the very 
late spring of 1837, fieldfares still frequented their winter quarters 
there, the great body of them remaining longer than ever before 
known. They likewise remained in the county of Kerry in the 
spring of 1837, until the end of April, which is later than had 
been before noticed.* The middle of April is the latest time 
at which they have been met with in the county of Wexford ;t 
but at Ballinderry, on the borders of Lough Neagh, about a 
dozen of these birds were seen in a hedge-row, in 1842, so late 
as the 31st of May ; their call was heard, and the blue of the back 
distinctly seen, so that no mistake could have been made respecting 
the species. Sir Wm. Jardine remarks, that the “ great body re- 
migrate during the month of May.” The ordinary arrival of the 
species in the north of Ireland, and its departure thence, certainly 
take place at earlier periods than the south (?) of Scotland, as 
noticed in that author's work. 
The Rev. Thomas Knox of Toomavara remarks in a letter to 
me, with respect to his present neighbourhood, and Killaloe, his 
former residence, that the fieldfares are not so numerous, and are 
always later in appearing than the redwings ; that if the weather be 
mild, they retire in the middle of winter for weeks together, but 
* Rev. T. Knox. f Mr. Poole. 
