XXXI. 



XOTES OX BIRDS OBSERVED DURING THE YEAR 1880 AND 



THE FIRST THREE MONTHS OF 1881. 



By Jonx E. Littleboy. 



Bead at Watford, I9th April, 1881. 



It is again my duty to offer to the Society a few " Notes on 

 Birds " observed within the county of Hertford. The period of 

 observation includes the year 1880 and the first three months of 

 1881. I am pleased to be able to announce that I have received 

 information of eight species new to our register, and, in accordance 

 with my previous custom, I will proceed to notice them seriatim. 



1. The Eavex {Corvus Corax).— On the 25th of February, 1881, 

 a raven was observed on the outskirts of Mimms Wood. It was 

 seen and recognised by several gentlemen when hunting in that 

 neighbourhood, and is reported by Miss Selby, of Aldenham, who 

 saw it very distinctly. It need hardly be said that the raven is a 

 rare bird in the ^Midland Counties, but, to use the words of Morris, 

 "he is a citizen of the world," and there is no reason why he 

 should not occasionally visit Hertfordshire. Whether the specimen 

 in question had escaped from confinement, or whether, as is very 

 possible, it was a young bird, driven southward by frost and snow, 

 cannot, of coiu'se, be definitely determined. Certain it is that the 

 bird was seen at Mimms Wood, and I am glad to be able to place 

 it on our register. I am informed by Mr. D. Hill, of Pinner, that, 

 only a few years ago, a raven visited a rookery near that town. It 

 attacked and succeeded in dispersing the rooks. It was eventually 

 caught in a rat-trap when feeding from a sheep-trough in an open 

 field. The raven is a circumpolar bird,* is a resident species 

 throughout Europe, but is not found in Africa. It is rapidly 

 becoming extinct in England, although still breeding in Scotland. 



2. The Kotjgh-legged Buzzard (Buteo Lagopus). — Observed by 

 Mr. Thomas Fowell Buxton, of Easneye, near Ware. Mr. Buxton 

 writes as follows : '* Last Tuesday I was shooting snipe with one 

 of my sons on the Rye meads. A large hawk, which I had no 

 doubt was a rough-legged buzzard, rose from the ground within 

 ten yards of my son. We afterwards found near the spot the 

 remains of a thrush (or redwing) and of a golden plover, both 

 of which had been eaten by a hawk, I suppose by the one we saw." 

 Mr. John H. Gurney, jun., a gentleman whose name is a household 

 word among ornithologists, has most kindly supplied me with a 

 short notice respecting this important addition to our register of 

 raptorial birds. " The rough-legged buzzard may be described as a 

 regular autumnal migrant to Great Britain, occurring in some years, 

 as in the autumn of 1880, in great numbers on the east coast, 

 particularly in I^orfolk. Unlike the common buzzard, which, in 



* Seebohm, ' Siberia in Europe,' p. 53. 



