93 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



THE ORNITHOLOGY OF RIDING MILL ON TYNE AND 



NEIGHBOURHOOD. 

 By the Rev. Henry H. Slater, F.Z.S., 



Member of the British Ornithologists' Union. 



A MANUAL of the Oi'iiitholog}' of any county, in order to 

 be exhaustive, must necessarily be to a considerable extent a 

 compilation. Human life is too short for any one man to pass, 

 in each part of a tract of country so large as an English count}', 

 a length of time sufficient to enable him to write a memoir of its 

 Ornithology — from his own observations alone — veith that fulness 

 which is demanded of all such publications now-a-daj'S. 



It is in the hope of being of some small assistance, in the event 

 of such a work being undertaken by Northumbrian ornithologists, 

 that the present notes are now put together. They are merely a 

 digest of the contents of such of my ornithological note-books as 

 relate to the neighbourhood of Riding Mill ; these notes were 

 accumulated during a close and pretty constant observation of 

 the fauna of that neighbourhood from the j'enr 1868 to 1883 ; 

 and nearly all the items inserted are the results of my own 

 observations alone. 



The sequence of the birds has been decided by Dresser's 

 'List of European Birds' (London, 1881). 



Missel Thrush, Turdus viscivorus, L., and Song Thrush, 

 T. musicus, L. — Resident and common. 



Redwing, T.iliacus, L. — An abundant winter visitor; its 

 earliest appearances at Riding Mill, as noted by me, are Sept. 21, 

 1873, and Sept. 18, 1877; its latest stay, April 29, 1877, May 3, 

 1878. Its note, whilst in this country, consists of a sort of low 

 monosyllabic " cluck," but in its breeding quarters, near the 

 Arctic Circle, it has a fine wild song. 



Fieldfare, T.jnlaris, L. — A winter visitor, but in very irregular 

 numbers, being very scarce some years. My earliest record is 

 Oct. 9, 1878; the latest stay, May 15, 1879; these two being in 

 the same winter, when they were unusually plentiful with us. 



Blackbird, 2'. merida, L. — An abundant resident, whose 

 numbers are, however, largely reinforced at the times of the 

 autumn and spring migrations. Like the other members of the 

 Thrush family, the Blackbird is very subject to internal parasites ; 



