334 SYLVIID^. 



almost innumerable and the bird is now to be considered a 

 regular winter-visitant to most of the south-western coun- 

 ties*, certain localities on the coasts of the Isle of Wight, 

 Devon, Cornwall and Pembrokeshire being hardly ever un- 

 tenanted at that season. To the eastward it is less common, 

 but it has occurred many times in Sussex, and more or less 

 often in Kent, Suffolk and Norfolk — almost always near the 

 sea. Further inland it has been observed as a straggler in 

 Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Derbyshire, and so far to the 

 northward as near Liverpool. Bellamy, in 1839, said it had 

 been known to breed at Exeter t, and there is some reason 

 to think that it did so in 1852 at Rongdon, in Staffordshire, 

 as recorded by the late Mr. R. W. Hawkins (Zool. p. 3503), 

 for the appearance of the eggs, then taken, satisfied the 

 scruples of Mr. Hewitson (Eggs Br. B. Ed. 3, p. 106). Mr. 

 Sterland also in the ' Birds of Sherwood Forest ' (jip. 67, 68) 

 mentions some nests found, in 1854 and 1856, near Ollerton 

 in Nottinghamshire, which he believes were those of this 

 species, and one of the eggs he took and kindly sent to the 

 Editor seems to confirm the supposition. Mr. Gray too 

 states that he was informed by Mr. George Kirkpatrick that 

 in 1858 he found a nest and eggs at Duncow near Dumfries, 

 which he could not make out to belong to any other than 

 this species. In Scotland, however, the Black Redstart is 

 a rare bird : Mr. Gray mentions only three cases in which 

 it has occurred as a visitor : some twenty years since in Caith- 

 ness ; at Cullen in Banffshire in 1857 ; and at Kirkwall in 

 Orkney in 1857 ; but Dr. Gordon informs the Editor of its 

 having been found near Elgin in one or two instances. 



Though, as already stated, the specimen obtained in 1829 

 was the first to make the species known as British, Thompson 



* Dorset is the chief exception, only one example being recorded thence. This 

 occurred March 19th, 1867, at Tarrant-Keyneston, as the Editor was kindly in- 

 formed by Mr. J. H. Austen, whose son shot it : the locality and date published 

 (Zool. s.s. p. 1511) being wrong. Yet the cliffs of Purbeck and Portland can 

 hardly escape its visits were they looked for. 



+ This author (Nat. Hist. S. Devon) includes the species twice, once under its 

 usual name (p. 206) and once (p. 205) as "Sylvia Erithacus, Linn.", which is 

 properly, as Linnaeus suspected, the hen of R. phvenicurus. 



