190 The Field Naturalist's Quarterly Aug. 



bird-life, and will serve for comparison in other seasons. It 

 is unnecessary to set out the whole of the data received, and 

 I shall content myself by giving the dates of arrival of each 

 species recorded from each county, the earliest record in 

 any one county sufficing for any subsequent dates recorded 

 for other parts of the same county. 



The blackcap usually reaches our shores from Northern 

 Africa about the middle of April, and the earliest record on 

 my list is April 10, the locality being Clevedon in Somerset. 

 Between the 14th and 22nd of that month it was reported 

 from — 14th, Surrey ; i6th, Cambridge ; 17th, Sussex ; i8th, 

 Northampton and Oxford; igth, Suffolk; 21st, Hants and 

 Warwick ; 22nd, Essex and Worcester ; and the latest arrival 

 sent to me was April 24, when the bird was first observed in 

 Gloucester. 



The chiff-chaff — that cheery little visitor from the shores 

 of the Mediterranean — is one of the earliest harbingers of 

 spring, and is rarely later than the first week in April ; but 

 the spring of igoi being a backward one, this species seems 

 to have been later in coming amongst us than usual. The 

 only March record I have is the 30th, the favoured locality 

 being Elveden in Suffolk. The next two dates were the 3rd 

 and 5th April, when it appeared in Somerset and Sussex 

 respectively. Between the last-mentioned date and the 21st 

 April it was also reported from — 6th, Warwick ; 7th, Berks, 

 Herts, Leicester, and Northampton ; 8th, Hants and Surrey ; 

 gth, Oxford; nth, Norfolk; 12th, Worcester ; 15th, Mid- 

 Lothian; i6th, Cambridge, Essex, and Isle of Man; 17th, 

 Stafford ; the latest record being 24th April, from Mont- 

 gomeryshire, North Wales. 



It may perhaps be interesting to record in this particular 

 paper the occurrence of the chiff-chaff as a resident bird 

 in Cornwall. My friend Mr A. W. Hext Harvey regularly 

 observes it at Penzance all through the winter, though he 

 tells me that it is always quite silent at that season and does 

 not commence to utter its two well-known notes until spring 

 is approaching. 



The corncrake, which generally arrives from Algeria, 

 Egypt, Asia Minor, and Palestine during the last week in 

 April, was first recorded from Stafford on April 21, the next 



