RICHARD'S PIPIT. 599 



Northumbrian coast, which wont into the collection of Mr. 

 Gishorue, of Yoxall Lodge, Staffordshire. Mr. Gould in 

 his ' Birds of Europe ' mentioned two instances of the 

 capture of this species near London in the spring of 1886, 

 and the British Museum, in 1837, obtained a specimen, 

 which is said to have been killed at Bermondsey and 

 may have been one of these last. 



Since then some fifty examples have been recorded as 

 obtained in England*, so that any particular notice of each 

 occurrence is needless. By far the larger proportion of 

 these have been taken in Sussex, near Brighton ; but 

 Cornwall including the Scilly Isles, Devonshire and Norfolk 

 have each contributed a good share, while the bird has also 

 been procured in Kent. Shropshire is the only inland 

 county to be added to those before mentioned, and it is to 

 be remarked that nearly all the English examples have 

 been obtained on or near the sea-coast. Several of them 

 have been taken, after an interval of some years, in pre- 

 cisely the same spots, shewing that there is something in 

 the nature of such localities to make them attractive to the 

 species. It would seem to visit England in September or 

 October and to remain here if permitted till the following- 

 spring. One is said to have been seen so late as May (Zool. 

 p. 9719), but most of the occurrences have certainly taken 

 place in autumn or early winter, and there is not the 

 slightest evidence pointing to an arrival here in spring. 

 Between the years 1851 and 1864 only one capture seems 

 to have been made (Nat. 1853, p. 157), and again from 

 1869 to the present time there has been a similar dearth 

 of- records, but between those two periods upwards of twenty 

 are said to have been taken, while doubtless many more had 

 the luck to escape notice. 



The habits of this species present some other unexplained 

 peculiarities. Though it has been many times met with in 

 many countries of Europe, as will immediately be shewn 



* Mr. Edwaiil .says ^Zool. p. tJyQO) he once saw it in Banffsliire, but the speci- 

 men does not seem to have been pi-ocured, and there is no other record of its 

 occurrence in Scotland. 



