xiv INTRODUCTION 



Wiltshire, A. C. Smith, 1887. 

 Worcestershire, Willis Bund (List), 1891. 

 Yorkshire (Wakefield), Talbot, 1877. 



(Vertebrata), Clarke and Roebuck, 1881. 



(Ackworth), Arundel, 1898. 



In addition to these county histories we have 

 to take into account the publication of such im- 

 portant works as Professor Newton's " Dictionary' 

 of Birds" (1893-96); the late Herr Gatke's "Birds 

 of Heligoland" (1895), embodying a vast number of 

 observations on the migratory species which visit the 

 British Islands ; the " Reports on Migration," pub- 

 lished by the British Association Committee appointed 

 to collect statistics from the keepers of lighthouses 

 and lightships around the coasts of Great Britain 

 and Ireland, with Mr. Eagle Clarke's admirable Sum- 

 mary of the series ; Mr. R. M. Barrington's monu- 

 mental volume dealing with the " Migration of Birds 

 in Ireland," and the recently published work by 

 Messrs. Ussher and Warren on the " Birds of Ire- 

 land," so long expected and so extremely welcome. 



An examination of all these works, embodying, 

 as they do, an enormous number of facts relating to 

 British birds, and a search through all the periodi- 

 cals which will be found mentioned in the following 

 pages, have resulted in the accumulation of a mass 

 of notes which it has not been possible to compress 

 into a volume of even 600 pages, although space 

 has been saved by omitting the geographical distri- 

 bution of all but the rarer visitants beyond the 



