ORNITHOLOar OF LINCOLKSHIRK. " 



the optic nerve, and the second branch of the fifth pair of nerves. The two 

 others are very minute, but through them pass the olfactory and maxillary 

 nerves, and those connected with the ear, which is very large. There are no 

 sockets in the skull for the eye, but it is situated in a mass of muscle. 



I kept one alive for some days in the spring of 1 848. When I was near 

 enough for him to see me, he was uneasy, and tried to bury himself in the 

 mould I had put in his boxj and when I dropped a worm in, he immediately 

 made for it, and devoured it rapidly. 



Christ's College, Cambridge, December oth., 1851. 



ORNITHOLOGY OF LINCOLNSHIRE. 



BY THE REV. R. P. ALIXGTON. 



In searching periodicals on Natural History, I find catalogues of ornitho- 

 logical species, from various districts of England; but I am not aware of 

 any complete contribution of that kind from a Lincolnshire correspondent; 

 neither am I going to attempt one. Perhaps a list of species that are not, 

 as less tedious, would be preferable to one of those that are; inasmuch as 

 the latter would be but an enumeration of nearly all the known species 

 inhabiting this island. This may at once be accounted for, from the variety 

 of surface and soil prevalent throughout the county. Take, for instance, the 

 north-east corner; here you have the high, bleak, but fertile land of the 

 north wolds, the rich tract of the middle marsh, the moorland of the district 

 around Rasen, the fens of Boston, the sand country along the banks of the 

 River Trent, and above all, the flat and muddy coast of the River Humber. 

 There are also, in many spots, large woodlands well adapted for the residence 

 of the Falconid(S, and the shyer species of warblers. 



In former years the north wold of Lincolnshire was one great gorse cover, 

 and rabbit-warren; the resort of the Dotterel, probably, too, the Bustard, 

 (^Otis Tarda,) the Stone Curlew, {jEdicnemus crepitans,) and a great variety of 

 Charadriadce. In the Boston fens, too, might, and that not uncommonly 

 either, be found the Bittern, {Botawiis stellaris,) and Spoonbill, (Platalea leu- 

 corodia,) etc., etc.: but the great improvement in both districts, the one by 

 draining, the other by enclosure — the change from rush and swamp, from 

 gorse and ling, to fine pasture and grain crops, has banished these once-valued 

 species. The Ruff", (Machetes pugnax,) the Stone Curlew, with its wailing cry 

 at the close of the day, the Dotterel, except in a few localities on the sea- 

 coast, during the autumn and spring migrations, with the Bittern and 

 Spoonbill are all but extinct, Among others for ever banished, might, in 

 all probability, be named, (for Yarrell gives them places in the Ornithology 

 of the adjoining counties, Norfolk and Yorkshire,) the Crane, the Stork, the 

 Night Heron, (Nycticorax Gardenii,) and Squacco, (A rdea comata,) "cum muUis 



