308 REVIEW—ORNITHOLOGY AT DANBY-IN-CLEVELAND. 
confining our remarks solely to such matters as more appropriately 
come within the scope of this journal, namely the natural history, 
and especially the ornithology of the district. 
e two chapters given chiefly to ornithology the writer 
informs us that one of the boldest and most unabashed of the garden 
plunderers of berry-fruit at Danby was the Moor Blackbird or Ring 
Ouzel. In September they collect in flocks of some hundreds, and, 
in company with the dale Blackbirds, for a time continue to frequent 
the open moor to feed on bilberries. These becoming exhausted, 
they make a raid on the gardens, and when the much-grudged supply 
of fruit is done, fall back upon the scarlet rowan-berries, and after 
these are finished, they will take their departure for more southern 
‘lands, not to appear again till the spring. 
Mr. Atkinson warmly defends the useful Starling from the charge 
of taking strawberries, and with regard to the question which was 
recently ventilated in this journal, whether it brings,off two broods 
or not in the season, is decidedly of opinion that under certain 
exceptional circumstances only this is the case, the first eggs or 
rood having been destroyed—a rule to which the Starling is no 
exception, and which holds good with many other species also which 
normally have only one brood. 
We regret to learn that the cheerful and harmless Dipper is 
becoming a rare bird on the Cleveland becks and rills. Formerly, 
where the author used to see six to ten pairs, he now barely sees one. 
This scarcity has been brought about through their wanton destruc- 
tion by the gun-carrying lout, and the same fate befalls the occasional 
Kingfishers which frequent the ‘big beck,’ and the rarer Great 
Spotted Woodpecker in its casual visits to the district. At one time 
Green Woodpeckers were anything but uncommon, but what with 
the cutting down of the older timber and slaughter of occasional 
visitors by bird-murderers, their visits are now very exceptional. 
Mr. Atkinson says the Raven has been extirpated during his 
time ; also the Barn Owl, which used to breed in the church tower ; 
and the Wood Owl, if it exists still, is represented by one pair only. 
The Merlin formerly bred in Danby Low Moor, near to the so-called 
British village, but this place knoweth them no more, and Mr. 
Atkinson has not seen a Harrier or Buzzard for this last thirty years. 
The keepers and watchers,--a class notoriously most ignorant of 
natural history, notwithstanding their great opportunities—do not 
as yet appear to have even recognised the valuable services of the 
harmless Kestrel in destroying the destructive smaller mammals. 
One of the watchers informed the author one day, in the manner of 
one who had accomplished a feat, that he had been helping in a raid 
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