244 STURNIDJ:. 



Grantham, was in Banks's possession, and that he was in- 

 formed of one or more being shot almost every season near 

 Ormskirk. In 1796, Shaw figured the species, stating that 

 an example had been shot the year before in Oxfordshire. 



The increased attention paid to ornithology during the 

 present century shews that this beautiful creature has 

 occurred more or less often in nearly three-fourths of the 

 English counties*, and that its appearance, though to some 

 extent irregular in point of season and place, may probably 

 be an annual event. The majority of instances, as might 

 be expected, are recorded from the eastern side of the king- 

 dom, but the bird has not unfrequently been obtained in the 

 extreme west near the Land's End and in the Scilly Isles, 

 while it has been also met with both in South and North 

 Wales. According to Thompson it has visited all quarters 

 of Ireland, including the range of the most western counties, 

 the latter assertion being supported by details of its capture 

 on the Isles of Arran in Galway Bay, and, three or four 

 times, in Kerry. In Scotland, says Mr. Gray, it has occurred 

 in almost every county from Wigtownshire to Shetland, but 

 he has not heard of its appearance in any of the Outer 

 Hebrides. Its visits to the British Islands usually take 

 place between the middle of June and the end of August, 

 but it has several times been noticed so early as May once 

 even (Nat. 1853, p. 156) on the 3d of that month t, and so 

 late as October (Zool. p. 5320), while an example is said 

 (Zool. p. 5203) to have lingered to December 20th. Emi- 

 nently gregarious as this bird is known to be where it is 

 abundant, it has been seldom seen in this country accom- 

 panied by any of its own species, and when it visits us it has 

 to forego its social habits or to indulge them by joining a 

 flock of common Starlings. Specimens taken here are quite 



* Those in which no record of its appearance has been found are Berks, 

 Gloucester, Hereford, Warwick, Hunts, Northampton, Rutland, Leicester, Staf- 

 ford, Cheshire and Westmoreland, but its recognition in these counties sooner 

 or later is doubtless to be expected. 



f There is a record (Zool. p. 2598), hardly to be deemed satisfactory, of its 

 occurrence in Oxfordshire in February, 1838. If there be no error the example 

 may have been one that had wintered in this part of the world. 



