General Summary. 275 



one or two pairs, simply because there are no hornbeams in 

 the Forest, nor gardens to tempt them with their fruits. The 

 chough, too, is seldom seen, its eggs and young being plundered 

 in the Isle of Wight cliffs and the Lulworth rocks. It is now 

 extinct in Sussex, and will soon be in the New Forest. Yet 

 these birds were once so numerous in England, not only 

 damaging the crops, but unthatching the barns and houses, 

 that a special Act of Parliament was passed against them.* 

 Twopence for a dozen heads were given. People were, under 

 various penalties, bound to destroy them, and parishes were 

 ordered to keep chough and crow nets in repair. 



There is, unfortunately, no other forest in England by which 

 we can make comparisons with the ornithology of the New 

 Forest. In Churchill Babington's excellent synopsis of the birds 

 of Charnwood Forest, we find only one hundred and twenty-five 

 species, but little more than one-half of those in the New Forest. 

 Out of the three hundred and fifty-four British birds the New 

 Forest possesses seventy-two residents, whilst it has had no less 

 than two hundred and thirty killed or observed within its boun- 

 daries, t With this we must end. I am afraid it is too late to 

 protest against the slaughter of our few remaining birds of prey. 

 The eagle and kite are, to all purpose, extinct, in England, 

 and the peregrine and honey-buzzard will sooii share their fate. 

 The sight of a large bird now calls out all the rafiish guns 



* Passed in the twenty -fourth year of Henry VIIC, 1532. Statutes of 

 the Realm, vol. iii., p. 425, 426. It should, however, be remembered that 

 under the term chough was in former times included the whole of the 

 Corvidce. Shakspeare's " russet-pated choughs " arc evidently jackdaws. 



f In Appendix III. is given a list of all the birds hitherto observed in 

 the New Forest District, as also more special information, which I thought 

 would not interest the general reader. 



N N 2 275 



