xx BRITISH BIRDS 



Sclater, based on Huxley's classification, and is the arrange- 

 ment adopted in the official list of the British Ornithologists' 

 Union (1883). The B.O.U. list enumerates 376 species ; 

 and of this number 211 species are counted as residents and 

 regular visitants ; the remaining 165 being loosely described 

 as ' Occasional Visitants.' About these aliens, which are 

 claimed as citizens, something requires to be said. 



It has long been the practice of our ornithologists to 

 regard as ' British ' any species of which one specimen has 

 been found in a wild state within the limits of the United 

 Kingdom. As a result of this excessive hospitality we find 

 in the list about forty-three species of which not more than 

 three specimens have been obtained; in a majority of cases 

 only one. We also find that there are not fewer than forty- 

 five exclusively American species in the list ; but by what 

 means, or by what series of extraordinary accidents, these 

 lost wanderers have been carried thousands of miles from 

 their own region, across the Atlantic, and have succeeded in 

 reaching our shores alive, it is impossible to imagine. It is 

 highly probable that some of the American, Asiatic, and 

 European waifs that have been picked up in these islands 

 were birds that had escaped from confinement ; but whether 

 brought by man or borne on the wings of the tempest to our 

 shores, the fact remains that they are not members of our 

 avifauna, and the young reader should clearly understand 

 that only by a pleasing fiction are they called ' British.' 



I have spoken at some length on this subject, because it 

 is one that appears to interest a great many persons who are 

 not ornithologists. How many British species are there ? is 

 a question that is continually being asked of those who are 

 supposed to know. I should say that, in round numbers, 

 there are 200 ; at the very outside, 210. Seebohm, in the 

 introduction to his great work, gives 222 as the number of 

 species ' fairly entitled to be considered British birds ' ; but 

 he probably counted some that are usually regarded as irre- 

 gular visitors, and perhaps others which have been exter- 

 minated in recent times. Of the 165 species set down in the 



