264 LETTERS. [vol. vi. 



. \\'ill Mr. W'itlierby kindly say how long in his opinion we must wait 

 before he gives this bird a '• residential qualitieation for England" '! 



Herbert Masse y. 



[Mr. Massey's letter seems to suggest that we should regard a species 

 as breeding in anj' area in which it may occur until it is proved not 

 to breed tliore ! Such an argument is really too obviously luiscientific 

 to require refutation. Suffice it to state briefly that, although the 

 Crossbill had long been known as an occasional visitant to Ireland, 

 it was not until tlie year 1839 that it had ever been known to 

 breed there. The next instance of breeding was in 1867, and from 

 1868 onwards it became a regular breeding species in Fermanagh, 

 but it was not mitil 1889 that it became widely distributed in Ireland 

 as a breeding bird. It is a significant fact that all the years mentioned 

 were years following well marked irruptions. 



With regard to IMr. Massey's Norfolk and Suffolk breeding-records, 

 the year 1889 for both comities is included in our Hand-List (p. 17), 

 but 1890 would appear to have been previously unrecorded, while 

 1887 confirms the probable record mentioned in the same work. 

 Supposing we admit that it bred also in 1888, we have here a sequence 

 of four years in which it nested in Norfolk, but the next breeding- 

 record for the county is not mitil twenty years afterwards, viz. 1910. 

 There was an irruption in 1887, a very large one in 1888, and an 

 equally great, or perhaps greater, one in 1909. 



As to Mr. Massey's last paiagraph, if we consider the past record 

 just mentioned, would it not be better to leave the future to look after 

 itself ?— H.F.W.] 



