32$ The Field Naturalist's Quarterly November 



secure some modern data as to its frequency and distribu- 

 tion in the British Isles. Gould speaks of it as having 

 been found as far north as the Orkneys. Frank Buckland 

 tells us that in 1891 two were shot "on the bank of the 

 Midland Railway in the neighbourhood of Hampstead, in 

 Gospel Oak Field." So, too, W. H. Hudson, 1897, speaks 

 of it as " an annual visitor to our country, although in 

 small numbers." Seebohm speaks of it as a regular 

 summer migrant to the British Islands, and describes the 

 nest. I have heard of it quite lately in Cornwall and 

 Hampshire ; but it would be interesting to know what 

 records there have been of finding it during the last two 

 years, for I fear that it is a rapidly vanishing species. 



Why I am a Field Naturalist. 



By W. Percival Westell, F.R.H.S., M.B.O.U. 



Nowadays sports and games, hobbies and studies, are 

 almost legion ; but probably never in the history of the 

 whole civilised world has there been such an appreciable 

 increase in the number of people who take an intelligent 

 interest in the fauna and flora of our country as during 

 the last few years ! 



And, beyond this, there are a great many people in 

 this restless, high-strung age who exhibit a keen delight 

 in the pleasures of the countryside, but who, nevertheless, 

 cannot be included under the category of those who take an 

 intelligent, painstaking, and systematic interest in the wild 

 tenants of our lanes and woods, meadows and rivers, or of 

 the beautiful flora with which most of our country is 

 garnished. 



To note this growing interest in wild nature — and more 

 especially when that interest is of an intelligent character, 

 and not merely surface-deep — is distinctly encouraging to 

 those who have devoted practically the whole of their spare 

 time to a pleasurable and profitable study of wild life at 

 home, and whose endeavours have, or should have, always 

 been to inculcate and foster a love for nature amongst 



