xvi INTRODUCTION. 



tlie soil will pulverize, and wlien very dry it is too hard for 

 them to be able to scratch it up. 



Although I am quite sensible of many defects in my work, 

 and have made no attempt at science, I still hope that it 

 may be found of some interest to the general reader as well 

 as to lovers of Ornithology, and may tend to make known 

 the present state of the Bird-life of the county; and as will, 

 I think, be seen, no pains have been spared in verifying the 

 occurrence of the rarer examples. It only remains to me 

 to mention m.y reasons for omitting a few which have been 

 accepted as Sussex birds ; and first, respecting the Golden 

 Eagle. Though JSIarkwick mentions it as having occurred 

 at Bexhill, he does so on very insufficient evidence, and 

 there can be little doubt that he was mistaken, for the 

 following reasons : he makes no allusion whatever to the 

 White-tailed, Sea, or Cinereous Eagle, which has occurred 

 several times in that very district, and in his time the 

 different species of Eagles were not properly distinguished. 

 The Golden Eagle, too, has never since been seen in the 

 county; thus it may be fairly concluded that the bird he 

 records was nothing more than the White-tailed Eagle. 

 The Canada Goose, as its name implies, is a Nearctic 

 species ; I have not included it because, though specimens 

 have been frequently met with in Sussex, there is little 

 doubt that all have been escaped birds bred on, or in the 

 neighbourhood of, the numerous pieces of water on which 

 they have been for many years kept in a semi-domesticated 

 state, and whence young birds, which could not be captured 

 and pinioned, naturally, especially in severe weather, dis- 

 perse over the country in search of food. To the Egyptian 

 Goose, an African species, the foregoing remarks will equally 

 apply. The Hooded Merganser, as I have explained in my 

 account of the Goosander, has been erroneously mentioned 

 as a Sussex bird. 



