Page:The Natural History of Ireland vol1.djvu/222

 composed of moss mixed with a kind of fine wool-like substance, and lined with feathers ; the third, composed of similar materials, was in a laurustinus and shaded by the leaves of the shrub : so late as the l8th of July it contained four young. The three plants just named, are favourite sites for the nest ; for which evergreen shrubs and young coniferous trees are generally selected. The gentleman first alluded to, once remarked, to his surprise, that the eggs in a nest were placed regularly in two rows with the small ends touching each other. On the 14th of April, 1848, earlier than usual, a nest with eggs, was found near Belfast. Mr. Poole, on the 16th of April, has observed a nest containing eight eggs. Soon after the young can provide for themselves, they and their parents flit about in company, and ring their little changes through- out every plantation. In the first autumns that they thus came under my observation, I was rather disposed, from hearing them simultaneously everywhere around Belfast, to believe in a migra- tion from the north (vide Selby's Ill. Brit. Orn., vol. i. p. 230, 2nd ed.), but having subsequently heard them in different years so early as the month of August, I now consider that it is our in- digenous birds alone, which, by constantly uttering their little cries, thus attract attention. These remarks were published in 1838, in my series of papers in the Annals of Natural History, and it is only to be added, that I consider the opinion then expressed still correct as to the birds seen very early in the autumn, yet, on two subsequent years, when the species came particularly under my observation, I felt certain of a migration of these birds to the neighbourhood of Belfast at the end of September and beginning of October. All at once numbers then appeared, and their little chorus was heard throughout a whole district, in a part of which none were known to breed in the one year, and but a single nest was observed in the other. Mr. Selby gives a most interesting account of a great migration of these birds to Northumberland, and adds, that before witnessing it, he " was convinced, from the great and sudden increase of the species during the autumnal and hyemal months, that our indigenous birds must be augmented by a body of strangers making these shores their winter resort."