president's address. 213 



on an uninhabited rock, a fresh male specimen of this bird. On 

 inquiry at the lighthouse, I found that it had been captured a 

 few days previously, in an exhausted state, by the children, who 

 had cut one of its wings, but it had escaped, and two days before 

 my visit had been seen on the rock where I found it. A fort- 

 night afterwards a female specimen was shot under the Cheviots 

 by the gamekeeper of Mr. Koddam, of Eoddam. The pair had 

 evidently wandered far out of their latitude to meet their 

 untimely end. 



Mr. J. Hancock has had the pleasure of adding a new name 

 to the catalogue of our permanent residents, by discovering the 

 tufted duck (Fuligula cristata), breeding in the grounds of Sir 

 W. C. Trevelyan. Of this circumstance we anticipate a detailed 

 account from Mr. Hancock's pen. It is far from improbable 

 that many of our winter visitants would, if unmolested, remain 

 in suitable localities to rear their young. We know this to be 

 the case, e.g., with the woodcock, which, when protected, is by no 

 means uncommon in the breeding season. Even so far south as 

 Hampshire, many pairs hatch their broods on the moors of the 

 Earl of Ilchester. And it is to be hoped that the diffusion of 

 more intelligence among gamekeepers may lead to the preserva- 

 tion of many species now wantonly destroyed or chased away. 

 If sportsmen could be persuaded not to fire at a woodcock after 

 the 1st February, it would soon be as permanent and resident as 

 the snipe, but he is looked upon as a passing stranger, and meets 

 a friendless stranger's fate. 



Nor is this disposition to remain confined to our winter visit- 

 ants. That exquisite little rail, Baillon's crake (Orti/gometra 

 Baillonii) formerly looked upon as a rare and accidental straggler, 

 has become a summer resident; and I had the pleasure of seeing 

 two nests, with their full complement of eggs, taken last year in 

 Cambridgeshire. 



The same would, I believe, hold good of another of our most 

 beautiful visitors, the hoopoe, were it not for the barbarous 

 passion indulged in by many gunners — I will not dignify them 

 by the name of sportsmen — of murdering every uncommon bird 

 they can bring down from behind a hedge. They then immor- 



