520 PANURID.E. 



reed-beds having been removed to admit of the water running 

 freely through the dykes." Its old haunts at the mouth of the 

 Medway and along the Thames have in like manner been so 

 changed that in the course of the last five-and-thirty years 

 they have ceased to be frequented by it, as was the case when 

 this work was first published, and Barking Creek and Erith, 

 where it was observed not long before that time, have 

 assuredly been abandoned. Nor can it be any more heard of 

 higher up the valley of the river, though it used to be found 

 so far as Oxford, and, if we can trust Pennant, it even 

 crossed the watershed of England, for he says he had seen it 

 near Gloucester. But there is no reason to suppose that it 

 ever bred so far to the westward, and its occurrence may 

 have been casual, for it has been recorded from still more 

 remote localities, as St. Levan in Cornwall, according to Mr. 

 Rodd, and Aqualate Mere, in Staffordshire, and on the Dove, 

 by Mr. Garner in his ' Natural- History ' of that county. 

 The assertion frequently made by authors, that it has been 

 taken in Lancashire originated in a misprint ; but Mr. More 

 was assured by Waterton that it had once bred on the 

 lake at Walton, which is the most northerly spot in the 

 United Kingdom where it can jDositively be said to have 

 occurred, since the example seen by Mr. Mark Booth at 

 Kirkleatham (Zool. p. 1135) was not obtained, and no trust 

 can be placed in the supposition of its having been observed 

 in Scotland. Its reported occurrence in Ireland by Thompson 

 is equally open to doubt. 



Eastward from England this species is pretty plentiful in 

 parts of Holland, and is, or used to be, exported thence in 

 some numbers as a cage-bird. It has occurred in Heligoland, 

 which must be regarded as the most northern limit of its 

 range. Information, for which the Editor is indebted to 

 Prof. Reinhardt, shews that, notwithstanding what Albin and 

 Edwards say, its appearance in any part of Denmark proper 

 is very doubtful, though it has several times been met with 

 in Holstein. In the rest of Germany it is rare and local. 

 According to Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser, Prof. Radde has 

 observed it on the Bug in Poland. In Southern Russia it 



