SGTPT 143 



voices overhead clang of goose and plaint of redwing, 



and all 



" The sounds sent down at night 

 By birds of passage in their flight." 



A few of the birds that visit us in winter are well 

 known, at least by name ; but perhaps the larger number 

 are familiar only to the naturalist and the sportsman. 

 There are about 450 birds which inhabit these islands, 

 and of which specimens have been at various times 

 reported. Of these, however, there are some seventy 

 which are regarded with doubt ; and, although doctors 

 disagree as to whether every bird whose appearance has 

 been once recorded should be reckoned on our list or not, 

 there are many naturalists who would still further reduce 

 the total by discarding the stray fugitives from the very 

 ends of the earth some of them, whose accidental visits 

 have generally been considered sufficient to give them 

 claim to citizenship. 



About fifty birds regularly come to us in spring to 

 spend the summer here, building their nests in English 

 woodlands and green lanes ; and then, when leaves are 

 falling, they turn south again to pass the winter under 

 an African sun. 



Thirty more, chiefly water-loving birds, ducks, and 

 geese, plovers and sandpipers, come southward at the 

 approach of winter from their haunts on northern 

 islands, or from Siberian marshes by the Polar Sea. 



One hundred and sixty-five are " occasional visitors." 

 Some of these have been seen but once. Others, like the 



