1 6 THE BIRDS OF SUFFOLK. 



volume of their Transactions in 1798, occupying more than 

 fifty pages. In this work he enumerates one hundred and 

 seventy-five birds as found in Sussex, and adds various 

 notes and a few figures. Important as this paper certainly 

 is, it is surpassed in excellence by the Catalogue of Birds 

 observed in Dorsetshire, which is quoted by Montagu as written 

 by Pulteney* in 1799, and was published in the third volume 

 of Hutchins' second edition of the History of Dorsetshire 

 (Appendix, pp. 1-22, Loud. 1813, fol.) He therein enume- 

 rates one hundred and ninety-eight species, some few of 

 which however are now considered to be only varieties. 



Since that time the avifauna of several counties or other 

 districts of Britain have been admirably illustrated by 

 several of our leading naturalists ; being either published 

 in the form of separate works, or in the transactions of 

 learned Societies, or in periodical publications, or included 

 in county histories or other topographical works. Among 

 these are to be mentioned two memoirs on Suffolk Birds, 

 one in connection with those of Norfolk, the other relating 

 to Suffolk only. The Catalogue of Norfolk and Suffolk 

 Birds, with Remarks, bv the Rev. lievett Sheppard, A.M., 

 F.L.S., and the Rev. William W hi tear, A.M., F L.S.,t was 

 read before the Linnean Society in April 1824, and May 

 1825, and appeared in the fifteenth volume of their 

 Transactions in 1827, occupying the first sixty-two pages. 

 " This admirable paper," as Mr. Stevenson observes, 

 u contains a complete list up to 1824 of the birds of both 

 counties, and was evidently the result of a gradually 

 awakening interest in Natural History subjects. Arranged 

 in a scientific form, its ample details supply many interesting 

 particulars at a time when certain species, now no longer 

 resident, were gradually becoming scarce." {Birds of 

 Norfolk, pref. vi.) 



Their paper is the first really important contribution to 

 the ornithology of Suffolk, which, it is to be regretted, is 



* Pulteney died in 1801. and Whitear see Trans, of Norfolk and 



f For a notice of Messrs. Sheppard Norwich Nat. Soc. (Vol. III., pp. 231,284). 



