F ACKWORTH BIRDS. 
Ackworth Birds, | being | a List of Birds of the district of | 
Gurney & Jackson, 1 Paternoster Row. | (Successors to Mr. Van Voorst.) 
ies ec [Small 8vo, cloth, pp. viii + 105]. . 
It is a very great pity that this list has been so carelessly 
compiled, for it is almost entirely a résumé of the work an 
observations of others. In competent hands a most readable 
populous, the area was rich in bird life, and though Mr. Arundel 
includes these in his district, the information he gives concern- 
ing them is of the scantiest, though there was ample material at 
hand to work from; as it is, the errors of commission an 
omission, especially the latter, are so numerous as to render the 
work utterly valueless as a volume of reference. To deal with 
these errors seriatim et verbatim :— 
On page 20 Mr. Arundel states that he only knows of one nest 
of the Corn Bunting having been found in the district. It used 
to breed regularly in my father’s hayfields up the Featherstone 
Lane, and I have a clutch of eggs now in my collection that 
I took from that locality. On page 21 it is stated that the Reed 
Bunting generally places its nest in ‘the side of a tuft of © 
rushes.’ I have far more frequently found it in dead and broken 
clumps of reed and sedge, the rank undergrowth in willow beds, 
small bushes, and hedges. On page 30 it is stated that the King- 
fisher has not been heard of as occurring on Hemsworth Dam. 
The late Mr. Edmund Leatham, of Wentbridge, told me that he 
had frequently seen it there. I entirely demur to the statement, 
' page 30, that the Barn Owl is the commonest Owl in the district. 
I have found the Long-Eared Owl far and away the most 
numerous. It used almost to swarm in the Went and Thorpe 
Woods, the Barn and Tawny being about equal in numbers. 
My father had a bird of the latter species, taken out of Darring-— 
ton Church, which lived in his possession for twenty-one years. — 
The Little Grebe, though not given as such, is most certainly 
Sica 
are considerably augmented in the winter. I could have shot — 
lots of them had I been so minded at that season. My father at 
one time had the shooting rights over Mr. Watson’s farm at 
East Hardwick, and he often used to see them there. I have | 
also seen them in winter on Mr. Bearoley = et a Purston, 
pene 
