16 , BRITISH BIRDS. 



Cheshire. — As Mr. T. A. Coward x^oints out in his recently 

 published Fauna of Cheshire, the northern Umits of the 

 Nightingale's range in the west of England are formed by the 

 wooded lowlands of this county, while even in these districts 

 it only occurs as an occasional visitor. Almost every year, he 

 says, the local newspapers report occurrences of the Nightingale 

 in various parts of the county, but the majority prove, on 

 investigation, to be of some other species. He further points 

 out that neither nestlings nor eggs have been actually found 

 in the county, but that there is presumptive evidence that the 

 birds nested in most of the cases where their occurrence is 

 beyond doubt. An examination of these last, as enumerated 

 by Mr. Coward, indicates that the Nightingale has never been 

 proved to occur anywhere in the south-east of the county, and 

 that the lowland wooded districts above referred to are 

 practically the lower parts of the valleys of the Dee, Weaver, 

 and Mersey, or one of the latter's tributary-streams, with the 

 Wirral, which Hes between the Dee and Mersey estuaries. 

 It seems evident, therefore, that the hills of Derbyshire and 

 Staffordshire, and their outlying portions in east Cheshire, 

 form an effective barrier to the spread of this bird mto the 

 latter county from the east, and the evidence rather x^oints to 

 the Cheshire birds being stragglers across the north Shropshire 

 plain, where the Nightingale is also an occasional visitor. 



Among the Cheshire records are two from the north-east 

 corner of the county : Strines, close to the Derbyshire border, 

 and Romiley, on the Upper Mersey, in 1896. Assuming the 

 correctness of both (and there is always a possibihty of an 

 error in identification, especially in a district where the 

 Nightingale is practically unknown), it might seem possible 

 that these birds had entered Cheshire from the West Riding, 

 but a personal acquaintance on the part of one of the writers 

 with this district enables us to say definitely that we do not 

 beheve this to be the case. On the Avhole, therefore, Cheshire 

 would seem to fall very naturally into line with Denbighshire 

 and Flintshire, in forming part of the western outlying portion 

 of the Nightingale's range. 



Derbyshire. — The greater part of this county hes outside 

 the regular breeding-range of this species, and with the 

 exception of the southern lowlands, records of nesting have 

 always been few and far between ; but from the end of 

 the eighteenth century onwards we have a series of isolated 

 instances of nesting, so that it is now possible to define the 

 limits of the range with some accuracy. 



By far the greater number of these records come from the 



