Mr. G. T. Fox's Notice of some rare Birds. 181 



No. V. — Notice of some Rare Birds, recently killed in the Counties of 

 Northumberland and Durham. By G. T. Fox, Esq., F. L. S., &c. &c. 



Read, November 21, 1831. 



A Notice, from time to time, of the capture of rare animals, will not be 

 deemed irrelevant to the business of Societies such as this, and an apology 

 for intruding such notices may be therefore unnecessary. If they are 

 of no other use, the description serves at least to awaken the observation 

 of members of the Society to further captures, and the repetition of such 

 acquisitions, which usually follow the first announcements, shews that 

 it is only necessary to direct the attention of naturalists to the proper 

 objects, to secure an additional supply. The cause of this is, not that 

 the animals may not have prevailed in particular districts before the first 

 discoveries, but that they have been hitherto unnoticed, or undistin- 

 guished. It may be useful to produce a few instances of this fact in 

 British Zoology only. 



Amongst the Mammalia our wild kinds are too few to expect to find 

 unnoticed species, but in British Birds what an accession to the list 

 since the days of Ray and Willoughby, and even since the time of that 

 keen-eyed naturalist, Pennant ! 



The ash-coloured Falcon, the Cirl Bunting, and the Castaneous or 

 Nyroca Duck, which was first noticed by Montagu ; also the purple 

 Sandpiper, by the same naturalist ; the Fork-tailed Petrel of Bullock, 

 first described by Temminck ; the Greater or Solitary Snipe, first de- 

 scribed by Latham as a British Bird, and, subsequently by Bewick ; 

 the Arctic Tern, by Selby — all these, and many more, have been re- 

 peatedly captured and distinguished, in consequence, probably, of the 

 first announcements. We may anticipate similar results in regard to 

 the rarer species ; as the Little or Olivaceous Gallinule of Montagu 

 (described by him as two separate species.), Baillon's Gallinule, 



