Vv 
land, equally well fitted to attract stragglers and furnish 
them a resting place. 
Mr. Seebohm endorses this view where he says the 
American visitants probably “cross, or attempt to cross the 
Atlantic, birds that have lost their way in migrating south- 
wards from Labrador, or have been driven out to sea by 
heavy gales. Frobably the greater number of these birds 
perish ; but some succeed in reaching Europe with or 
without the help of an occasional rest on the rigging of 
some of the nurwcrous ships crossing the ocean.” 
But the same author points out another route by 
which they reach us: “Most of those birds which vistt this 
country are inhabitants of the North-west of America, 
many of them even breeding on the Siberian coast ; and 
there can be little doubt that they travel across Asia, ap- 
pearing on our Islands in the great stream of migration 
which reaches us trom the east.” 
Such considerations seem to render it more probable 
that the occurrences of such birds, for an example, as the 
Red-winged Starling, with its known powers of flight, 
and which has been taken many times in the years 
1843-’44-’65-’66-’67, should have been true occurrences ; 
than that dealers, and aviary keepers should beso con- 
tinuously careless with their valuable birds, as to allow 
such numbers to escape; for it is well to remember that 
it cannot be supposed that a// the birds which escape are 
captured, nor all that are captured recorded. 
I have once or twice lost birds from my Aviaries, but 
they were never captured, or at any rate never recorded : 
the Plumhead Parrakeet, the Pope (‘Passerina Lavata’), 
and I have seen the Cardinal (‘ Passerina Cullata’) flying 
about in my brother’s grounds; none of these were re- 
corded ; of such great rarities as have been seen once, 
and have evaded the gun, wherever they have flown to, 
