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STURNIDtE. 
noted on October the 18th, 1843. When walking about half- 
past four o'clock on the wooded banks of the Lagan, I ob- 
served a small flock of these birds flying in a southerly 
direction, and, as they were high in the air, concluded that they 
were migrating southwards. But when returning homewards, 
half an hour afterwards, the same flock (as it was believed from 
the number of birds being similar) appeared over the bed of reeds 
already alluded to, and went to roost there. This place is two 
miles westward of where they were first seen, in the vicinity of 
which are no reeds, and it was believed that these plants had been 
noticed in their flight, and were now resorted to, in preference to 
trees, as a resting place for the night, which was cold and frosty. 
By Mr. Wm. Todhunter, late of Portumna, I have been informed, 
that after a hurricane, in September, 1836 (?), nearly nineteen 
hundred of these birds were washed ashore on the banks of the 
Shannon. The reeds in which they placed their trust, were snapped 
asunder in consequence of their weight. Starlings are stated by 
Mr. Todhunter to be vastly more numerous during winter than 
summer in that quarter. This gentleman remarked, that they fre- 
quented the same woods, as roosting-places, for two or three 
winters only : in the course of eight years, during which he lived 
at Portumna, they thus changed three times. 
In Saunders’ Newsletter of March the 25th, 1845, Mr. B. 
Ball published the following interesting note : — 
“ In the mass of thorn trees at the upper end of the Zoological Garden in the 
Phoenix Park, sleep every night from the end of October to about the end of March, 
from 150,000 to 200,000 starlings ! This enormous number may appear an exaggera- 
tion, yet it is the estimate of many observations. When the birds were first observed, 
they were estimated at from 1 5,000 to 20,000 : hut during three years they seemed 
to have increased tenfold, if not more than this, in the recent frost. The congrega- 
ting of these birds is very interesting. If an observer will at dusk place himself near 
the gold-fish pond, he will perceive starlings, first in twos and threes, coming from 
every point of the compass into the ivy-tangled thorn ; presently large numbers, in 
flocks, will approach ; these seem a little more cautious, and make a partial circuit 
before they, as it were, drop into their roosts, which they do (garrulous birds as they 
are on other occasions) in perfect silence. They are scarcely located, when some of 
the main bodies come in sight, consisting of many thousands each • they approach 
much more slowly than the smaller bodies, and hover and reconnoitre for a con- 
