INTRODUCTION. 15 



Beesley. It is little more than a bare list of species^ and 

 includes 109 birds. The author aeknowledg-es assistance from 

 Mr. James Loftus^ formerly of Banbury, Mr. M. Jessop and 

 Mr. T. Abbott of Banbury, and Mr. J. Busby of North New- 

 ington. In the Zoologist for 1849, and the following year, 

 appeared a series of articles by the Revs. Andrew and Henry 

 Matthews, entitled The Birds of Oxfordshire and its neightjour- 

 Jwod. The list comprised 232 species, but of these nine must 

 be excluded from the census of Oxon birds, as the examples 

 upon which their title to inclusion rests were procured in the 

 neighbouring parts of Berkshire or Buckinghamshire. The 

 authors wrote from Weston-on-the-Green, in the Otmoor 

 country, where they had been resident for many years, a dis- 

 trict most favourable for observing the more uncommon wild- 

 fowl which visit us in winter ; the list is accordingly very rich 

 in records of this group of birds. For this reason^ and from 

 the fact that the writers^ experience goes back to the time 

 when the country was less carefully drained than it is now, 

 and to the time when not only were the ordinary wildfowl far 

 more numerous than at present, but when the Kite, the Buz- 

 zard, the Baven, the Harriers, and the Bittern were not in- 

 frequently met with, the Messrs. Matthews^ excellent account 

 of our birds is of especial interest and value to the county 

 faunist. In 1876 and 1877 Mr. CM. Prior contributed to 

 the Bantmry Guardian a series of articles upon the ' Birds of 

 North Oxon.'' In 1882 was published a pamphlet, entitled 

 A List of the Birds of the Banbury District, written by the 

 author in conjunction w^ith his brothers j the list, which in- 

 cluded 180 species, applied mainly to North Oxfordshire. In 

 June, 1886, appeared A Year with the Birds, by an Oxford 

 Tutor. A second and enlarged edition, in w^hich the author, 

 Mr. W. Warde Fowler, revealed his identity to the public, 

 was issued before the year was out. This edition contains a 

 list of the birds observed within a radius of four miles around 

 Oxford during the three preceding years, including 104 species. 

 The present writer is indebted to this work for much useful 

 information relating to the birds in the neighbourhood of 

 Oxford^ and in the north-west of the county, contained in 



