REPUTED BRITISH BIRDS. 367 



Cheshire bird, though all three were accepted by Saunders. 

 The B.O.U. Committee include the Cape Pigeon, Daption 

 capense (Linn.), with reserve ; I investigated one reported 

 occurrence, not included by them, and found that the bird had 

 been imported. Saunders believes that the Laughing Gull, 

 Larus atricilla Linn., was included in error, and there seems 

 every reason to believe that the supposed occurrence of the 

 American Pied-billed Grebe, Podilyinbiis podiceps (Linn.), at 

 Weymouth, was due to accidental exchange of skins, and not 

 to any attempt at fraud. The Irish record of the Martinique 

 Gallinule, Porphyrio martiiiiciis (Linn.), was due to an error, 

 and there is no detail about another specimen, supposed to be 

 British. 



The eight or more records of the now extinct Passenger 

 Pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius (Linn.), cannot be lightly cast 

 aside, but as the bird was certainly at one time imported alive, 

 it is now impossible to say how all reached Britain, but the last, 

 shot in Yorkshire in 1876, was an escaped bird. There is 

 little doubt about the Andalusian Hemipode, Tur7iix sylvatica 

 (Desf.), Barbary Partridge, Caccabis- petrosa (Gmel.), and Bob- 

 White, Coliniis virginiamis (Linn.) ; they had been released 

 as game-birds. I saw two Californian Quails, Lophortyx cali- 

 fonticus Shaw, quite tame birds, which had been captured in 

 a Cheshire wood, and examined in the flesh a Patagonian 

 Crested Tinamou, Calodromas elegans (D'Orb. and Geoff.), 

 shot in the same county, neither of which could possibly reach 

 England unaided. 



