212 THE ZOOLOaiST. 



closely watched. Col. Montagu, at Kingsbridge ; Mr. Gatcombe, 

 at Plymouth; Mr. E. H. Rodd, at Penzance, and other orni- 

 thologists, might be named who have recorded every rare bird 

 which has been obtained in their respective counties. Pembroke- 

 shire, probably, has not possessed such devoted students of bird- 

 life ; and its towns may also have been without a resident 

 bird-stuflfer to whom any singular bird might be brought for 

 preservation. It must be said that these local bird-stuflfers' 

 shops are ver}' useful in helping towards a knowledge of the birds 

 which occur in a district. Where they do not exist many a scarce 

 bird is obtained and thrown away, and no record of it is kept. 



The scanty list of Pembrokeshire birds must be attributed to 

 the absence of observers at the favourable situations, and of 

 bird-stuffers' shops in the county towns. My own observations 

 have been entirely confined to the northern portions of the county, 

 and, compared with other parts of the United Kingdom, the 

 Pembrokeshire avifauna appears to me to be deficient in several 

 resident and man)' migrating species. The bare and bleak 

 character of that part of the district which stretches for miles to 

 the W. and S. of St. David's, and the absence of trees, may 

 account for many birds being missing from the list of residents ; 

 and its being out of the track of migration may be the cause 

 why so many of the summer migrants fail to reach us. The 

 Nuthatch, and the Greater and Lesser-spotted Woodpeckers, 

 may naturally be absentees from a sparsely-timbered country, 

 and to the same cause may perhaps be assigned the non-appear- 

 ance of the Wryneck, the Long-eared Owl, and the Stock Dove. 



Of the smaller summer visitants there are many for which 

 I have searched in vain, which might have been well expected 

 here. I may instance the Wood Wren, so common in the 

 summer in the woodland districts which skirt the Forest of 

 Exmoor in Somersetshire ; and the Black Redstart, a regular 

 autumnal visitant to the seaboard of Devon and Cornwall. 



The British Association for the Advancement of Science, at its 

 meeting at York in 1881, appointed a committee of ornithologists 

 of repute to obtain from the keepers of the various light-houses 

 and light-ships around the coast some record of the migrations 

 of birds as observed by them. Lists were accordingly issued to 

 all the stations, and particular attention was requested to the 

 state of the weather and to the direction of the flight of the 



