REPUTED BRITISH BIRDS. 361 



missed them on the morning of the day on which Ireland was 

 sighted. Similar experiences of birds joining vessels are not 

 uncommon, and flocks of unidentitied land birds have been seeti 

 flying east in various parts of the Atlantic. 



Where evidence of identification is slender scepticism is a 

 wise fault, for too many observers are in a hurry to record a 

 bird, but there appears to be a growing habit of throwing doubt 

 on the records of the older and long since departed ornitho- 

 logists and accepting as reliable information supplied by 

 present-day workers, even when these men are professional 

 shooters and collectors. Many of these older men were careful 

 and accurate observers, and critically examined the data sup- 

 plied with specimens. We all make errors, and just because 

 here and there we find a past-master at fault, lacking that 

 knowledge which we have gained from others since his day, it 

 is unreasonable to conclude that all his records are unreliable. 

 There are cases — the Calandra Lark, White-collared Fly- 

 catcher, and American Goshawk, for instance — in which, owing 

 to later occurrences, we have accepted old and previously 

 rejected records as genuine. The B.O.U. Committee in- 

 vestigated many, though not all of the old records of rare and 

 accidental birds, explaining why they considered them unworthy 

 of acceptance ; but their refusal in some cases is discounted by 

 their acceptance of a few other species on what appears to an 

 outsider to be just as slender evidence. 



I have no wish to swell the British list unduly ; indeed there 

 are one or two species which I think should not be counted, 

 and to my mind the accidental or lost wanderer is of little 

 importance, unless, by keeping careful records, we can prove 

 hereafter that its appearance is more regular than we imagined. 

 I therefore give a list of birds, excluded by the B.O.U. Com- 

 mittee, mentioned as doubtful by Saunders, a most careful and 

 considerate critic, and by others, who handled the records more 

 roughly, and state what my opinion is as to their status. I 



