2518 . The Zoologist— March, 1871. 



of the birds of the Malvern district at all. No doubt, had 

 attention been paid to the subject in past years, more curious 

 particulars could have been obtained than are able now to be 

 presented; but it will be better to give an imperfect list than 

 none at all, and a note of any omission can be readily made by 

 resident members of the Club, or additions marked that occur 

 from time to time. The gun and the gamekeeper scare away many 

 species that haunted the woods of the Chace in former times, and 

 the habits of birds can only be studied by a careful observer ; yet 

 although the indiscriminate destiuction of the feathered tribes is 

 to be deprecated, yet, on the other hand, flocks may congregate 

 rather too numerously, even for their own subsistence in winter, 

 and specimens for study in the museum are desirable, and must, 

 where necessary, be procured for identification. Without pressing 

 the poetry of the subject into service, as to the pleasure to be 

 derived from the contcmplalion of the feathered tribes when the 

 country is explored by the naturalist, it may be well for the gentle- 

 man only anxious for game, and the occupier of land who thinks 

 most about his crops, to duly consider what Mr. Cecil Smith, in 

 his ' Birds of Somersetshire,' has said, even when mentioning the 

 Raptorial order of birds. He thus remarks : — " That the game- 

 preservcr and his keeper are not always doing the best for their 

 own cause by the total destruction of these birds, I think will 

 appear from the short notices I have been able to give of the food 

 of the different species, and in some cases they are doing absolute 

 mischief to themselves as well as to the farmer by this destruction, 

 which allows the increase of various insects and animals mis- 

 chievous to both." The case is even stronger as to insectivorous 

 birds. 



This list is necessarily made up from various sources. I have 

 myself made memoranda as to Worcestershire birds for many years 

 past, and have received information from ornithologists and pre- 

 servers of birds in Worcester. Mr. Blyth, well known as an eminent 

 ornithologist, when resident at Malvern a few years since, was 

 careful to notice the birds he saw ; and Dr. Grindrod, in a publica- 

 iion on ' Malvern Past and Present,' has recorded his observations. 

 Mr. Edwards, the librarian to our Field Club, has sent me a notice 

 of all the species he has met with up to 1870, and these I have 

 drafted into the list. 



