INTRODUCTION. Xlll 



Further research may possibly indicate that the Solway 

 basin is an ornithological junction, where the feathered pas- 

 sengers from north-east Europe either "take seats" for 

 Ireland, or follow the coast line directly south ; but, on this 

 point, no satisfactory evidence seems to have been obtained 

 hitherto. 

 Literature. The literature of the Birds of Cumberland can hardly be 



said to extend over a longer period than a hundred years. 

 Speed (1611), tells us that Cumberland is "overspread 

 with great varietie of fowles " Childrey shrewdly remarks 

 (Britannia Baconica, 1661), that the "Maritime parts are wel 

 furnished with Fish and Fowl." Robinson records the pre- 

 sence of Swans in the lakes, but his "Ocular observations" 

 appear to have been confined to "Subterranean Matters" 

 (Essay towards a Natural History of Westmorland and Cum- 

 berland, 1709). Clarke included a few items of bird lore in 

 his Survey of the Lakes (1787) ; but the first attempt to 

 render a statistical return of the Birds of Cumberland was 

 made by Dr. Heysham, in 1797. Dr. Heysham contributed 

 his essay to Hutchinson's History of Cumberland, a work 

 which bears the date 1794 on its title page, but it was pro- 

 , bably printed gradually, and internal evidence shows that the 

 MS. was still in Dr. Heysham's hands in the spring of 1797. 

 In this list, of about twenty pages, Dr. Heysham enumerates 

 one hundred and sixty-seven species of Birds as having 

 occurred to his knowledge in Cumberland, but the Mute 

 Swan, Muscovy Duck, and other interlopers, are included in 

 his estimates. Most of his notes are based on personal obser- 

 vation, and those upon the Swift, Hen Harrier, Goosander, 

 and Waxwing, display considerable research. The Eev. 

 W. Eichardson at the same time contributed to the county 

 history an essay on the zoology of Ulleswater, of which the 

 Birds occupy about nine pages. 



