Birds. 6805 



countries on business, his testimony is worth a great deal, though he 

 makes no claim to being a naturalist. 



Doubtless further accounts of the more rare birds and animals of 

 North America could be found in the American and European printed 

 books of travel and history, on the southern sections of the United 

 States and Mexico and Central America, which have been published 

 in England, France, Germany and the United States, since the advent 

 of the Spanish revolutions of 1820. The old Spanish missionary 

 writers prior to 1800 also contain valuable observations on the Natural 

 History of Spanish America, very little known seemingly among the 

 learned men of Europe and the United States. California has brought 

 to new light the great value of the literary and zealous labours of the 

 old Catholic padres. What would the people of California have done 

 for provisions in 1849 and 1850 if the friars had not provided for them 

 500,000 head of cattle and 30,000 horses? They would have starved 

 like Jacob's family. The priests proved the zoological, fruital and 

 agricultural value of California for seventy years. 



A. S. Taylor. 



Monterey, April 7, 1859. 



Notes on Birds observed in Herefordshire. — Daring a visit to Herefordshire in the 

 autumn of this year I had frequent opportunities of noticing that the country 

 abounded in many birds which are comparatively rare in other countries, although my 

 visit was not made at the best season for ornithological observations, especially as re- 

 garded our summer residents, they having then nearly all disappeared. Amongst 

 others, the missel thrush, called by the country people the " stretch,'' is met with in 

 great numbers ; indeed it appears even more common than the song thrush, though 

 the latter is also plentiful. The ring ouzel or mountain blactbird, the rarer great 

 gray shrike {Lanius excubitor) are, I was informed, tolerably numerous, but at the sea- 

 son of my visit they had probably migrated, as I did not see either of them. Of the 

 larger birds, I observed hawks, jays, magpies, and last, though not least, at all events 

 in brilliancy of colour, the gay-plumaged green woodpecker (Picus viridis) or " ecle," 

 which is the name it is there known by. Rarely did.I go abroad, especially on a dull, 

 gloomy day, without hearing its merry startling laugh (believed there to prognosticate 

 rain) ringing through the woods or in crossing the large orchards, so common in that 

 part of the country; seeing it, cat-like, supporting itself on the trunk of an old apple- 

 tree, peering cautiously around it from time to time, and then, on the least intimation 

 of danger, winging its short ungainly flight, dropping and then rising as it speeds its 

 way to some secure retreat. So wary are these birds that, although I so frequently 

 saw them, I did not succeed in procuring a specimen, as they would not allow me to 

 get sufficiently near them for that purpose : prompted no doubt by an instinctive know- 

 ledge that their gay appearance renders them more conspicuous than the rest of their 

 species, they geneially select an isolated tree with no cover close enough to conceal an 



