148 
MERULIDiE. 
In the Belfast Commercial Chronicle of December 25, 1839, 
the following paragraph appeared under the heading of 
“ A venerable Blackbird. — There is at present in the 
possession of Mr. John Spence, of Tullaghgarley, near Ballymena, 
a blackbird that has arrived at the wonderful age of twenty years 
and nearly eight months. It was taken by him from the nest 
when young, and ever since has enjoyed the very best of health. 
It still continues to sing, and that well. He feeds him on 
potatoes baked up with a little oatmeal, of which he is uncom- 
monly fond. He is, however, beginning to shew symptoms of old 
age, his head is getting grey, and a number of white feathers are 
springing up on his neck and breast/” 
January 12, 1843, I saw at Mr. Nicholas, bird-preserver, Bel- 
fast, a female blackbird with a pure white head, and which was 
otherwise singular in having the entire upper plumage black like 
a male, while the under plumage was that of a female. This 
caused persons equally skilled in the species to differ in opinion 
respecting its sex; it proved on dissection to be a female. The bird 
had been observed (the white head marking it) for two years about 
a country house, and was carefully protected from shooters, but un- 
fortunately at last fell a victim to a rat-trap, in which it was cap- 
tured. Mr. Davis of Clonmel has mentioned a male blackbird 
with a white head having been picked up in a dying state on the 
18th of January, 1848, at Bocklow, near Tethard, where it had 
been known for the preceeding fifteen years, and had come every day 
at luncheon hour to be fed. A pure white one is said to have 
been taken in the summer of 1 845, from a nest at Monkstown, 
in which were three others of the ordinary colour* 
Mr. Bichard Langtry, after returning in 1838, from shooting at 
Aberarder, Inverness-shire, where he had spent three months, 
informed me that no blackbirds were seen, although there is much 
wood towards the base of the mountains : when there myself 
during the month of September, 1842, I did not meet with one 
of these birds, although there are extensive woods and trees 
* Mr. R. Warren, junr., Castle Warren, Cork. 
