PREFACE. Vil 



small Sandpiper there recorded. If I am not in error, 

 this species is also noticed in Catesby's Carolina. 



Mons. Vieillot called the Peep of America T. minu- 

 tilla, apparently desiring to point out by this specific 

 name that it was a smaller bird than T. minuta. 



STRIX FUNEREA. The Hawk Owl. An instance of 

 the occurrence of this species, of which only one example 

 had been previously noticed as belonging to our British 

 Catalogue, was recorded in the Zoologist for 1851, p. 

 3029, by E. T. Higgins, Esq., of Birkenhead. 



It is worthy of notice that of the more recent additions 

 to our British Birds, half of them are found in North 

 America ; the greater portion of them being species that 

 resort to high northern latitudes in their breeding-season, 

 and have been obtained here, about, or soon after, the time 

 of their autumnal migration to the southward. 



The route pursued by birds from North America to 

 this country is an interesting problem, of difficult solu- 

 tion. "Would that the problem might be solved by the 

 following calculations of the comparative numbers of the 

 species found in the different localities of the two countries. 



The list of the Birds of America, as made out by 

 Prince Charles Lucien Bonaparte in his comparative Cata- 

 logue of the Birds of Europe and North America, in- 

 cludes of our 



British species 24 per cent. 



The birds of the Fur countries and the 

 Arctic regions, by Sir John Richard- 

 son, include on the same plan . 33 

 The south coast of Greenland . . 74 



b 2 



