180 THE BIRDS OF CORNWALL. 



devoted much care and time to tlie verification of the facts given, 

 but more especially of the data now published for the first time, 

 and have not allowed a record to appear about the accuracy of 

 which I have any reasonable doubt without expressing the same. 

 Among the accidental visitors on the list I have included three, 

 the records for which are probably correct, but the evidence is not 

 sufficiently satisfactory — namel}', the Pine Grrosbeak, the Sooty 

 Tern, and the Little Egret These are enclosed in square brackets 

 in the list, and are not included in the totals. The order followed 

 throughout is that adopted in the second edition of Howard 

 Sau.nders' " Manual of British Birds." 



As I have attempted to give the precise status of each bird 

 in the county as resident, migrant, casual, or accidental straggler, 

 a few words may not be out of place as to the exact meaning of 

 the terms employed. Few birds are actually resident in the sense 

 that the individuals remain in one joarticular district or county both 

 summer and winter. Nearly all in fact are more or less migratory, 

 but so loD^' as the species can be foiind in the described area all 

 the year round it is regarded ornithologically as a resident. In 

 the winter, for instance, the hedge sparrows that nested in Corn- 

 wall have gone south into Spain or Northern Africa, while their 

 place in the county has been taken by birds from the North, 

 In s^iite, however, of these extensive migratory movements, this 

 bird is always with us, and is therefore looked upon as a resident 

 species. In other words when the areas of summer and of winter 

 distribution overlap the bird is considered a resident wherever 

 this overlapping occurs. Throughout that part of the breeding 

 area that lies outside the overlap the bird is a SLimmer migrant, 

 and similarly throughout the area of winter distribution outside 

 the overlap it is described as a winter visitor. Where the areas 

 of summer and winter distribution are completely discontinuous 

 the species can nowhere be described as resident, and in the 

 intervening districts over which it passes in its journey to or fro 

 it would be described as a passing visitor in spring or autumn or 

 both, as the case may be. As the flyliue taken by many species 

 on their way to winter quarters is often very different fi'om that 

 adopted on the return journey, many of these veritable birds of 

 passage are seen in the county only in spring or autumn instead 

 of at both seasons as is the case when the same fly line is followed 



