Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/176

 in Down. Ring-ouzels appeared in numbers like fieldfares and red- wings among the Mounterlowney mountains, Tyrone, to sporting friends, grouse-shooting there in the last week of August, in the years 1817 and 1818. Their resort was to some rowan- trees near a shieling at the extremity of a glen, where six or seven have been killed at a shot as they were feeding on the ber- ries. They were the most common birds in that wild locality, and suffered much in consequence, being in daily requisition as food for trained peregrine falcons.

I have rarely been in the haunts of the ring-ouzel about the time of its arrival or departure. The earliest date at which it happened to come under my notice about Belfast, was the 17th of April,* and the latest the middle of October : in a bird killed at the latter period, I found a quantity of the larvae of insects of several kinds. This species has occasionally been met with in Ireland during winter.

About Aberarder, Inverness-shire, an observant friend met with ring-ouzels in small flocks from the 10th of August to the 26th f September, 1838, on which latter day not less than twenty were seen : he considers them to feed chiefly on the "heath-berries" (which were observed in their mutings) and berries of the juniper. In other years they were stated to be common until the period of his departure from that district in the middle of October. When there myself during September, 1842, these birds were occasionally seen among junipers, — of which there is quite a tract in Glen Marson, — and rowan-trees, both laden with berries. The greatest number were seen on the 26th of that month, on which day a few came under my own observation. One of my friends, whose beat was in another and wilder district, reported them to be in con-

An ornithological friend under whose notice this species first came on the 30th of April, 1848, when he saw four in company at one of the ravines of the Black Moun- tain here, remarked, that he should have passed them by as blackbirds, but for per- ceiving them to alight on the tops of whins and other plants : — a good observation as their alighting on the tops of rocks, stones, plants, &c, is a striking characteristic. On the 7th of April, 1846, several were seen by Lord Roden's gamekeeper on the mountains above Tollymore Park.