212 SYSTEMATIC CATALOGUE. 



1844 at Arundel ; another at Albourne in Decem- 

 ber in 1 848 ; and one was captured at Parham 

 House, which had flown into a room through the 

 open window. It has also been killed near Chi- 

 chester, and occasionally in the eastern division 

 of the county. 



WRYNECK, Yunx torquilla. Provincial, Rind- 

 ing Bird. One of the few local epithets worth re- 

 cording.* So termed in many parts of Sussex 



t 

 * I confess that I do not attach so much importance to 



provincial nomenclature as it would appear to possess in the 

 eyes of some persons. The local names in this Catalogue 

 are but few : they have been culled from a heterogeneous 

 mass which had accumulated in my note-books, and which 

 might be supposed to have originated in the Tower of 

 Babel. I have noticed only such as appeared to be expres- 

 sive of some quality, or property of, or circumstance relating 

 to the birds themselves such as "the barley bird," "the 

 rinding bird," "the parson gull," "the duck-hawk," &c. 

 or those which, seeming sufficiently established by gene- 

 ral usage in their respective districts to have superseded the 

 ordinary and recognized names, might therefore be practi- 

 cally useful to the collector in his enquiries amongst the 

 natives. But as a general rule, I am strongly of opinion 

 that these provincial names ought to be discarded from all 

 works on Natural History. Most of them are quite inap- 

 propriate, others devoid of point or meaning, and while in 

 one order of birds the same silly nickname is frequently ap- 

 plied indiscriminately to every individual in a family, in 

 another we find a single species honoured with as many 



