Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/218

 prevailing on them for the first time to admit suspicion into their guileless bosoms, off hurries the whole interesting group with quick and undulating motion to the nearest tree or young plantation in sight j yet there, if you follow them cautiously and noiselessly, they will re-admit you to nearly former familiarity, and so enable you to pry once more into the mysteries of their œconomical de- partment."

In April, 1841, this species was met with as follows in H.M.S. Beacon in the Mediterranean : — 23rd, eighty miles from Malta, and fifty from Cape Passaro, the nearest land, one flew on board : — 25th, about sixty miles from Calabria, and 135 from Mount Etna, another appeared; one which I caught, perched quietly on my finger, and was so carried about to feed on flies, which it seized when within reach, never leaving the hand if the fly could possibly be captured thence : — 26th, eighty miles from Zante, 130 from Navarino, a willow wren and a chiff-chaff (S. rufa) were found dead in my cabin. They had not been caught or injured in any way, and must, I think, have died from fatigue ; want of food could hardly have caused their death, as there were plenty of flies in the cabin. On this same day, one of Nattered s warblers (Sylvia Nattereri, Temminck,), a south of Europe species, was caught.

I possess a specimen of the S. Trochilus, which flew on board a ship in 1834, to the north-west of the Azores, in latitude 44° N. and longitude 34° W. ; the date, unfortunately, was not commu- nicated.