1921.] Birds of Al Oil dia, Majorca. 675 



them. They have little knowledge of the birds or of the 

 natural history of their district, and are not interested as a 

 rule in natural objects ; even the shepherd boys, who spend 

 the whole day in the country with their flocks, take very 

 little notice of the birds around them : little reliance can, 

 therefore, be placed on their statements. 



The weather from October 1920 until May 1921 was so 

 abnormally bad and unsettled that the movements of 

 birds, and especially their times of nesting, were most 

 irregular. 



There is a small collection of mounted birds in the Tnstituto 

 Balear in Palma, but this — like that at Mahuji in Minorca — 

 is of little value owing to absence of data. 



Cultivation in Majorca has of late years so extended, and 

 the character of the island so altered, particularly by the 

 drainage of some of the marshes, that many of the notes of 

 earlier observers are not now applicable. As an instance, 

 a large marsh called El Prat, siluated a short distance to 

 the south-east of Palma, has entirely disappeared, and others 

 have been much curtailed by the advance of cultivation 

 around their margins. 



A. von Homeyer visited the Balearic Isles in 1861 from 

 the middle of April until the middle of May, and his 

 obser\ations appeared in the 'Journal I'ur Ornithologie ' in 

 1862 and 1864 ; many of his statements, however, could 

 only have been from hearsay. 



Barcelo wrote in 1866 ; many of his notes were not from 

 his own observations, and are questionable. 



Howard Saunders published in 'The Ibis' of 1871 

 (pp. 51-68, 205-225, 381-102), in a list of the Birds of 

 Southern Spain, a number of notes of his observations on 

 the Birds of Majorca. 



The Arcliduke Ludwig Salvador published various volumes 

 between 1869 and 1891 on the Natural History, etc., of 

 Majorca. 



The most complete list hitherto published is that by 

 Dr. A. von Jordans in ' Falco ' of 1 August, 1911. He 

 spent March, April, and May, 1913, in the islands, and 



