Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/144

 fully the size of a man's head, composed externally of moss, and placed on the shelf of a rock rising from the river, which flowed about seven feet beneath. The aperture was close to the base, the thickness of the nest merely being between it and the rock ; it was eaved so, that from particular points of view only could any entrance be observed. This bird breeds in the glens around Clonmel;* and apertures in the arches of the bridge, over the Shannon at Killaloe, are occupied by its nests.f Thus, where there is a deficiency of natural breeding-places, the water ouzel can accommodate itself to artificial structures.

As several authors, to whose works I have referred, differ in their descriptions of the colour of the legs of this species, it may be remarked, that two mature specimens killed on the 25th July, had the entire front (and it only) of the tarsi and upper side of the toes of a whitish colour, like the clouded or opaque part of a quill ; all the rest was blackish.

The stomachs of two individuals I examined, in the month of December, contained the remains of the larvae of aquatic Coleop- tera, and one in January exhibited the fragments of insects only. The stomach of one looked to in October was entirely filled with the remains of Crustacea, excepting two full-sized dorsal spines of a three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus). A person who has had ample opportunities of observing the species, states, that from shallow water he has often seen it bring the larvae of Phryganeæ, and break their cases on a stone to get at the contained animal. Sir Wm, Jardine, in the second volume of his British Birds, gives a full and admirable account of this species, as Mr. Macgillivray likewise does in his second volume ; the latter description, how- ever, being marred by unnecessary reflections on other ornitho- logists. Both these authors state, that they never found the ova of fish in water ouzels dissected by them, nor do they think that these birds ever seek or use such food, although, from an ignorant belief that they destroy the ova of the salmon, they are unrelentingly persecuted in some parts of the north of Scotland.

Mr. R. Davis.

f Rev. T. Knox.