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ADDITIONS TO THE LIST OF BRITISH BIRDS 

 SINCE 1899. 



BY 



HOWARD SAUNDERS. 



Fob the readers of British Birds I have been asked 

 to supply an outline of the accessions to the British List 

 since the completion of the 2nd edition of my " Illustrated 

 Manual of British Birds," in 1899. Even during the 

 ten years following the 1st edition of 1889 the list had been 

 augmented by seventeen ; but the last eight years have 

 been still more productive, and twenty additional species 

 have established more or less of a claim to inclusion. 



As will be seen by the following list, the novelties are 

 from all parts of the British Isles : — Midlands, East 

 Anglia, Scotland, Cornwall — but especially from the south- 

 eastern portion of England. This last had not, until late 

 years, received much attention at the time of the spring 

 migration, although it was precisely the district from 

 w^hich remunerative results might have been expected. 

 The removal of this reproach is largely due to the 

 assiduity of the ornithologists hereafter mentioned ; and 

 it should be remembered that the introduction of the 

 absolute novelties now recorded is only an item in the 

 additions wdiich these observers — and some others — have 

 made to our knowledge. 



It is now recognized that in spring individuals of several 

 species which were formerly considered to be of rare — 

 sometimes imaccountably rare — occurrence, frequently 

 overshoot their usual breeding-area in a northerly 

 direction, especially small and inconspicuous birds like 

 the Warblers. It is true that the scientific studj' of 

 migration does not consist in the acquisition of new or 



