23 



DISTRIBUTION AND NUMBERS OF BRITISH 

 BIRDS. 



THE distribution and even the numbers of the feathered tribes 

 which inhabit the British islands, or resort to them periodi- 

 cally to breed in the summer, or to avoid more inclement 

 skies in the winter, are points upon which no precise state- 

 ment can be made ; because we are ignorant of the habits of 

 many of the species that make their appearance occasionally, 

 and very recent experience shows that some which were 

 formerly considered as stragglers remain in the country the 

 whole year round, though they are generally concealed both 

 by their habits and by the nature of the places in which, 

 especially in the breeding season, they take up their abodes. 

 In round numbers, however, there may be stated to be 

 between two hundred and ninety and three hundred different 

 species of British birds, that is, of birds which by natural 

 means have at some time or other found their way into the 

 country and been taken alive or killed ; and this exclusive of 

 the species that have been imported, or the varieties into 

 which those species have been broken by those differences of 

 treatment of which unfortunately no particular note has been 

 taken, but which, if that had been judiciously done, would 

 have verj- much assisted in determining how far climate and 

 food influence the characters of birds in the wild state. 



The distribution of the feathered tribes is as indeterminate 

 as the numbers ; for though there no doubt are birds which 

 belong to certain localities and not to others, some regulated 

 by climate, others by situation, some apparently by drought, 

 others by humidity, some by the covert of woods or other 



