XIX. 



NOTES ON THE BIRDS OF NORTH IIERTFORDSHIRE. 



By Joseph P. Nunn, 



Communicated by Alan F. Grossman, F.L.S. 



Read at Watford, SO th April, 1897. 



Up to the close of the first half of the present century the 

 northern part of Hertfordshire had a fairly good avifauna, but by 

 the introduction of the gamekeeper and the modem gunner it was 

 soon stript of its feathered inhabitants, and to ever expect a return 

 of our lost birds to our woods and fields is as hopeless as a return 

 to the good old times when agriculture was remunerative. 



It must be understood that the following remarks refer to the 

 locality of Royston, Therfield, Kelshall, and Sandon, the last three 

 parishes having large open fields to the north, backed up by hills 

 and woods on the south. 



In the Forties the great plover was fairly common all along the 

 open fields, but as agriculture improved it gradually became scarce, 

 and it is now very sparingly represented. I have heard of none 

 breeding in the neighbourhood since 1894, when I found a pair of 

 eggs on my land just over the border in Cambridgeshire. The 

 dotterel {Eiidro7nias morinellus) always appeared at the time of the 

 spring migration, but now it is a very rare visitor. It is quite 

 twenty years since I have seen any : I then saw about sixty in one 

 pack, which is the greatest number I have ever seen together. 

 I could not have been mistaken, for I walked quite on to them, 

 and although I put many of them up, they did not leave the field ; 

 on the following day, however, they had taken their departure. 



The wheatear in those days (the Forties) nested very freely on 

 Royston Heath, but now only a few may occasionally be seen 

 on migration. The only local eggs I have in my collection I took, 

 about forty years ago, from a nest on our heath. 



Wildfowl were always seen in considerable numbers passing 

 south during the winter in days gone by, but they no longer have 

 a line of flight over this district. 



The larks are to the present day always seen passing south at 

 the commencement of severe weather, but they now take their line 

 cither east or west of the town of Royston, and are never seen 

 passing directly over as they did in former days : indeed, it is quite 

 the exception to see even a small flock passing directly over the 

 town. The nightjar was never common. I have but one local egg 

 in my cabinet, which I obtained in the year 1845. I have not 

 heard of one being found since. Goldfinches used to breed within 

 a few yards of the house in which I now reside in the town of 

 Royston, but ere the Fifties arrived they had departed, and are 

 scarcely ever now seen in a wild state. The Royston or hooded 



