XIX. 



NOTES OX BIRDS OBSERVED I\ HERTFORDSHIRE DURING 



THE YEAR 1894. 



By HEifEX Lewis. 



Read at Watford, lUli March, 1895. 



It is now nearly eighteen years since the late Mr. J. E. Littlcboy 

 read before the Watford iffatural History Society his first paper 

 on birds, entitled " The Birds of our District," bnt including some 

 notes on birds observed in distant parts of Hertfordshire, and since 

 then a yearly report on the birds observed in our county has been 

 written, the second of these annual reports being read to the Hert- 

 fordshire Natural History Society, for the Society had, in 1879, 

 extended its sphere of influence, and its title, to embrace the whole 

 of the county. These annual notes on our birds show that for 

 a long time'a large amount of interest has been taken by many of 

 our members in this particular branch of Natural History. 



One reason for this interest in the study of Ornithology may not 

 be far to seek to those of us who, perhaps as mere lads, may have; 

 caught the love of Nature, for we may have partaken of the 

 abounding joy and happiness surrounding us as we wandered forth 

 in one of our early morning walks amid sylvan scenes on a glorious 

 May day, so few of which, however, we get in this fickle climate. 

 It would be vain and fruitless for me to attempt to give a faithful 

 or perfect description of such a morning, when the sun is rising in 

 glorious light in the eastern sky. the thirsty earth is teeming with 

 new life and energy after the refreshing rain, and the balmy air is 

 resonant with the pleasant hum of insect-life, and with the love- 

 notes and joy-songs of innumerable happy birds. The eye is 

 delighted with the beauty of form and colour, and the grace of 

 movement all around, with the lovely green leaves quivering in 

 the gentle breeze, and with the meadows rich in varied hues, 

 every blade of grass decked as it were with a sparkling gem. The 

 beautiful effects of light and shade in the early morning, the 

 delicate odours of trees and flowers, the rippling murmur of 

 running water, the graceful fliglit of the swallow, the lazy caw 

 of the rook, the laugh of the woodpecker, the gambol of squirrels, 

 the coo of wood-pigeons, the call of the cuckoo, and the song of 

 the nightingale, all help to increase the cliarm. 



How cheerless would our land be without the birds ! A scientific 

 writer, in speaking of the destruction of the dinornis, has said that 

 the destruction of the individual is unimportant, but the destruc- 

 tion of the type is a crime. Yet as matters go now, tmless some 

 stringent measures are taken, most of the birds of Europe will in 

 the next century be as extinct as is now the dinornis. In an 

 article on " Birds and their Persecutors," in the January niimber 

 of the 'Nineteenth Century,' "Ouida" says that "the craze for 

 devouiing birds of all kinds is a species of fury from the Alps 



