22 BIRDS OF LANCASHIRE. 



GENUS PHYLLOSCOPUS. 



CHIFFCHAFF. 



Phylloscopus rufus (Bechstein). 



Local Name — Per/r/i/. 



A summer visitor, rarely seen except in one or two 

 localities, and nowhere common. It is not mentioned 

 by Mr. John Blackwall in the tables of migrants, having 

 reference to the north side of Manchester, published in 

 his " Researches in Zoology," but on the south side 

 Mr. John Hardy says that it was formerly not a rare 

 bird, arriving very early, and breeding regularly, now 

 being certainly less common near the city, apart from 

 the fact that its haunts in this special district have 

 been made less retired, and in some cases destroyed. 

 In the Clitheroe district, Mr. W. Peterkin never heard 

 it, and before 1877, when Mr. T. Altham heard one in 

 the Hodder valley, a long interval had passed without 

 its appearing. The last-named observer heard it also 

 near Clitheroe in 1879 on April 2nd, and in 1880 on 

 June 2nd, and took a nest of five eggs near Habergham 

 Eaves, Burnley, in 1871, where, too, he had occasionally 

 heard it in other years. I myself have never come 

 across it during fifteen years of pretty close observation. 

 At St. Michael's-on-Wyre it is an irregular visitor, Mr. 

 Hugh P. Hornby having seen it in the springs of 1880 

 and prior years, but not since. Mr. J. B. Hodgkinson 

 says that it breeds every spring near Preston, and Mr. 

 R. Standen also finds its nest near Goosnargh, where it 

 arrives about March 20th, and leaves about October 1st. 

 Mr. John Weld says that it arrives the end of March at 



