THE BIRDS. 91 



chiefly young birds get exposed for sale in the market. 



The number of distinct species of birds known to exist in 

 the world is not less than eleven thousand, and many more 

 probably exist in remote corners, of which little has yet been 

 learned. In Great Britain, there exist about two hundred, 

 either established denizens, or regular visitors ; and about a 

 hundred and sixty more have been known to come for awhile, 

 and at longer or shorter intervals, from other countries some, 

 as rare emigrants, others, it would seem, by misadventure. 

 Birds, in their aerial voyages, often wander inconceivably far 

 from home; so that, in all countries, solitary examples of 

 different kinds are met with in turn, and this, once for all, or 

 nearly so the same spot being never revisited. In 1807, a 

 pratincole came to Ormskirk, where it was shot, as a reward 

 for its love of adventure, the stuffed remains going to 

 Knowsley, and thence to the Liverpool Museum. A red 

 phalarope came to Birkdale in 1832. Since about that time, 

 the ring-ousel and the arctic gull have also come to Southport, 

 once each. 



In surveying the ornithology of any given district, it 

 becomes important accordingly to distinguish the birds of the 

 year into three separate classes, Permanent Residents (in 

 Britain) ; the Regular Visitors from other countries, summer 

 or winter ; and the Casuals, or vagrants. Of the first class, 

 Southport appears to have about sixty ; regularly immigrating 

 birds have been reckoned to the number of about twenty ; and 

 of Casuals, chiefly shore and web-footed birds, the list runs 

 to about fifty. Many of the kinds of birds, however, which 

 no further back than twenty-five years ago, were plentiful in the 

 neighbourhood of Southport, have shared the fate of the 



