DUBLIN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
95 
flying round the lake, joined the first coiners; these immediately rose, 
and all took a circuit round the fields, and then alighted again. 
Flocks now came in thickly from all sides, the same performance 
being gone through at each arrival, until the flocks began to come so 
fast that they had no time to remain on the ground at all. The main 
flock then adjourned to the lake; arriving there, it took two or three 
circuits of the lake, and then alighted among the reeds; the arrivals 
now were not so numerous as they had been, but many flocks still came 
in, and each arrival was the signal for a general move and promenade 
as before. This procedure was kept up till about half an hour after 
dark, and then ceased, so that I presumed all had arrived in that time 
(two and half hours). When I left, a constant chattering and gossip 
was going on among the reeds. 
I could form no accurate estimate of the numbers that were there, 
but the reeds on the north of the lake are about a quarter of a mile long, 
and two hundred yards wide, and every reed seemed to have a half a 
dozen on it. I could always tell, ever afterwards, when it was getting 
late by seeing the starlings going Doohyle wards. 
With regard to the‘breeding-place of starlings—in the Court-house 
square, Bathkeale, at the rere of one of the dwellings, there is an old 
pigeon-house, in which a lot of starlings build; and the owner of the 
house says that they remain there summer and winter. I saw them 
there in the spring, I suppose over'forty of them, just as tame as pigeons 
about the yard and house. 
[Since my last communication I find that the stares have left Doo ¬ 
hyle, chiefly, I think, on account of the shooting parties (nearly every 
evening there after dusk) this winter. When I found. Doohyle was 
deserted, my curiosity was aroused to discover their present abiding 
place. I, therefore, watched the flights every evening, and found that 
they were in a direction to the west of Newcastle. Knowing the 
country well thereabouts, I thought it might be in one of the planted 
glens in Coal-measure Hill, no lakes being in that quarter; and on com¬ 
ing home that way the other evening, I found, as I had expected, the 
stares assembling in a young fir plantation, in a deep ravine due west 
of Newcastle, and about one mile to the north of Barnagh Hill. On the 
road from Newcastle to Abbeyfeale I have observed the birds going to 
their roost; from Abbeyfeale, ten miles to the west; from Shanagolden, 
eight miles to the north; and from Bathkeale, eleven miles to the east. 
The flights occur about sundown_G. H. K., Bathkeale, Feb. 24,1858.] 
Dr. Kinahan thought the communication just read most interesting. 
It would be advisable if observations were to be made in all the differ¬ 
ent parts of the country which these birds frequented, as to whether, as 
had been stated by Mr. B. J. Montgomery in his paper on the last even¬ 
ing, starlings returned to the same roosting-place each year. There 
were many points of interest connected with the habits of partial mi¬ 
grants—that is, such birds which, as the wild duck, snipe, starling, 
&c., were resident in small -numbers in this country throughout the 
year, but received a great accession to their numbers in the winter 
