A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



and a few guillemots all noisily living in company. Terns, as a rule, form 

 separate colonies on the smaller inner rocks. The greater part of the flat turf- 

 covered island of Annett is literally riddled with the burrows of puffins and 

 Manx shearwaters that nest here in thousands. Ringed plovers, oyster-catchers, 

 and rock-pipits breed in great numbers all round the inhabited and on several of 

 the uninhabited islands including Annett, Samson, St. Helens and Great Ganilly. 

 The conditions of bird life in Scilly differ greatly from those on the 

 mainland. From the point of view of migration these islands are second in 

 importance only to Heligoland, but the subject is too complex to treat 

 in limited space. The extent to which the migratory movements over 

 the archipelago differ from those that affect the bird population of the 

 mainland is to some degree indicated by the fact that no fewer than fourteen 

 species have occurred as accidental visitors at Scilly that have not been 

 recorded for the rest of the county at all. These fourteen species are : 



Yellow-browed warbler Lesser kestrel 



Water pipit American bittern 



Lesser grey shrike Little ringed plover 



Woodchat Killdeer plover 



Ortolan bunting Red-breasted snipe 



Short-toed lark Esquimaux curlew 



Iceland falcon Whiskered tern 



Nearly all these waifs and strays have occurred in autumn, and indeed 

 most of the rarities at Scilly occur at that season, so that the autumn 

 migratory movements are presumably much more complex than those of 

 the spring. 



The total number of species in the county ornis is 303, exclusive of 

 sundry introductions and escapes from captivity. The number for Devonshire 

 as indicated in D'Urban and Mathew's Birds of Devon (ed. 2) is 290, and 

 the inclusion of the melodious warbler and Continental Coal Pit brings the 

 total up to 292. The following table shows the status of the birds in the 

 two counties : 



Residents . 

 Summer migrants 

 Winter visitors . 

 Birds of passage . 

 Casual visitors 

 Accidental visitors 

 Miscellaneous 



303 292 



The miscellaneous birds include in each county the pheasant, an in- 

 troduced resident ; and for Cornwall the turnstone, which occurs in the county 

 all the year round and may have bred at Scilly ; the gannet, which is cer- 

 tainly resident but does not appear to have ever bred in the county; the turtle- 

 dove, a regular summer visitor for which only one single nest has been 

 recorded, and the roseate tern, which formerly bred at Scilly, but has been 

 extinct in the county for more than thirty years. 



Apart from the pheasant the introduced and semi-naturalized birds that 

 have been shot in the county include : 



Canadian goose (3) American summer duck (i) 



Egyptian goose (2) Red-legged partridge (i) 



Spur-winged goose (i) Barbary partri d g e (2) 



328 



