198 
SYLVIADiE. 
composed of moss mixed with a kind of fine woohlike substance, 
and lined with feathers ; the third, composed of similar materials, 
was in a laurustinus and shaded by the leaves of the shrub : so 
late as the 18th of July it contained four young. The three plants 
just named, are favourite sites for the nest ; for which evergreen 
shrubs and young coniferous trees are generally selected. The 
gentleman first alluded to, once remarked, to his surprise, that the 
eggs in a nest were placed regularly in two rows with the small 
ends touching each other. On the 14th of April, 1848, earlier than 
usual, a nest with eggs, was found near Belfast. Mr. Poole, 
on the 16th of April, has observed a nest containing eight eggs. 
Soon after the young can provide for themselves, they and their 
parents flit about in company, and ring their little changes through- 
out every plantation. In the first autumns that they thus came 
under my observation, I was rather disposed, from hearing them 
simultaneously everywhere around Belfast, to believe in a migra- 
tion from the north (vide Selby's 111. Brit. Orn., vol. i. p. 230, 
2nd ed.), but having subsequently heard them in different years 
so early as the month of August, I now consider that it is our in- 
digenous birds alone, which, by constantly uttering their little cries, 
thus attract attention. These remarks were published in 1838, 
in my series of papers in the Annals of Natural History, and it is 
only to be added, that I consider the opinion then expressed still 
correct as to the birds seen very early in the autumn, yet, on two 
subsequent years, when the species came particularly under my 
observation, I felt certain of a migration of these birds to the 
neighbourhood of Belfast at the end of September and beginning 
of October. All at once numbers then appeared, and their little 
chorus was heard throughout a whole district, in a part of which 
none were known to breed in the one year, and but a single nest 
was observed in the other. Mr. Selby gives a most interesting 
account of a great migration of these birds to Northumberland, 
and adds, that before witnessing it, he “ was convinced, from 
the great and sudden increase of the species during the autumnal 
and hyemal months, that our indigenous birds must be augmented 
by a body of strangers making these shores their winter resort." 
