xlii CHANGES IN THE COUNTY ORXIS. 



in a circlet of pearls ; the whole of the underparts a pure spotless 

 white, with a lustre upon it very similar to that on the breast of a 

 Grebe, giving almost an iridescence in the sun under certain 

 movements of the bird. I observed it in company with some Fly- 

 catchers and Whitethroats, which it much resembled at a distance, 

 but rather exceeded in size apparently. It was very active and 

 lively, and not at all shy, frequently coming within a few yards of 

 where I and my sister were sitting. It was Aery busy catching 

 insects, sometimes on the wing, sometimes pouncing on them on 

 the ground, and sometimes hunting for them in the bushes, being 

 not unlike a Tit in its restlessness and movements." As two 

 examples of Vireo uUvaceus, VieilL, the Red-eyed Vireo, have been 

 caught near Derby (Saunders^s ' Manual of British Birds,'' p. 146), 

 there would be nothing unprecedented in another member of the 

 genus, perhaps the Western form of the Solitary Vireo, Vireo 

 sofitai'im, var. plumbeus, Allen, having paid a visit to Lundy, 

 and it would be only another instance of North- American birds 

 appearing in Devonshire and Cornwall. 



CHANGES IN THE COUNTY ORNIS. 



The changes which have taken place in the Avifauna of the 

 United Kingdom during the last century are more conspicuous 

 in such a county as Devonshire, perhaps, than in many others, 

 both because it presented greater scope for them, and also that 

 the causes which led to them have been more far-reachinsr. 

 The idea which the Devonshire ornithologist of the present day 

 forms of his county as it was a hundred years ago is that of a 

 Snipe-and-rabbit-frequented district, for the most part, where 

 buzzards and harriers were numerous, while Avild-fowl and waders 

 abounded in the estuaries. Drainage and embankment of salt- 

 marshes, enclosure of commons, conversion of rushy swamps into 

 sound meadow-land, have all helped to restrict the happy hunting- 

 grounds of the Snipe, that, at the time to which our own recol- 

 lection reaches back, was still so plentiful that school-boys home 

 for the Christmas holidays were entered at it, instead of at the 



