3328 Tue ZooLocistT—DEcEMBER, 1872. 
quill-dealers ready to pluck them; to some there is a fascination in 
being duped which is perfectly irresistible: remonstrance, advice, 
caution, are totally unavailing. 
I believe every ornithologist will thank Mr. Harting for the 
trouble he has taken to distinguish with sufficient clearness the 
species which are indigenous from those which are occasional 
visitants, but there will probably be some slight difference of 
opinion as to his decision. In his ‘Cybele Britannica,’ the most 
philosophical work of the kind ever published, Mr. Watson has a 
group of plants which he calls “ Denizens,” and he thus defines 
the word—“ Denizen—At present maintaining its habitats as if a 
native, without the aid of man, yet liable to some suspicion of 
having been originally introduced.” Such among birds are the 
pheasant, the redlegged partridge and the swan; yet the pheasant 
and redlegged partridge are given by Mr. Harting as “ British Birds 
properly so called,” and the swan, because a domesticated species, 
is omitted altogether. I consider all three determinations wrong. 
The aid of man has certainly assisted in the introduction of the 
pheasant, probably in that of the partridge, possibly in that of the 
swan. Yarrell says it is recorded that swans were first brought into 
England from Cyprus by Richard I., and he very truthfully speaks 
of it as being now “half-domesticated.” There can, however, be 
little or no doubt that some of those swans which have been killed 
here in hard winters were voluntary visitors from the Caspian and 
Black Seas and the Danube, while no one, so far as I can learn, 
has ever suggested that this has been the case with the Colchican 
pheasant. I think it can be shown that two or three centuries ago 
the swan was not an uncommon water-fowl in a perfectly wild con- 
dition; but, like the stork and the crane, it has retired to avoid 
persecution. The American swan (Cygnus americanus) and the 
trumpeter (C. Buccinator) are given in the accidental list, as if to 
make amends. 
Again, the woodchat (Lanius rutilus) has less claim to be 
considered British than the Greenland falcon, of which more than 
a score have been obtained; or than the redfooted falcon (Falco 
vespertinus), of which three score have been noticed,—perhaps the 
report of the woodchat nesting at Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, 
may have influenced Mr. Harting in this decision; but then we 
find the waxwing (Ampelis garrulus) included as British, and this 
certainly does not nest here; at the same time, the nutcracker 
