BIRDS 
Bedfordshire at the hands of the zoologist has received less attention 
than almost any other English county. Only one work, and that touching 
but briefly upon its vertebrata, has been published. In the History of 
Luton and its Hamlets (1855, and asecond edition in 1874), a list of species 
is given with a few particulars, but unfortunately several of the records 
are untrustworthy. In addition to this work, the scattered notes in the 
Zoologist and Field and local newspapers form almost the only printed 
records from which information has been gleaned. 
With the exception of the chalk-hill range running through the 
south of the county (where, until about twenty years ago,the stone curlew 
still continued to nest and dotterel whilst on migration were annually 
known to tarry awhile) there is but little attraction for any rarer breeding 
species, other than that which a highly cultivated county with a consider- 
able number of smaller woodlands more or less generally dispersed would 
offer. 
Early in the past century when our woods were more extensive 
the common buzzard and kite still nested, and possibly the honey 
buzzard, and the hen harrier also still frequented the more open areas ; 
but of our hawks the sparrow hawk and kestrel alone remain, the hobby 
not having been known to nest since 1892. Several pairs of ravens con- 
tinued nesting until the middle of the century, the last pair being 
exterminated from Woburn about 1871 ; the carrion crow, though con- 
siderably reduced in numbers, still remains with us. On several estates 
where there is a considerable amount of fir plantation the nightjar is 
still evident, but in lesser numbers than formerly, and the long-eared owl 
is fairly abundant. The existence of several small ‘ heronries’ is within 
the memory of some of our older inhabitants, but the nests of one or two 
pairs only are to be found now, and these are not in the localities that 
were formerly chosen. The preserved waters in the parks at Southill, 
Woburn and Battlesden are the favourite resorts of the great crested grebe 
(and until quite recently the little grebe), as well as Luton Hoo. Pochard 
ducks have nested in considerable numbers around the latter pools ; teals 
in many instances, particularly at Southill, and shovel ducks have bred in 
the county on several occasions. 
With the exception of the now much restricted Flitwick Marsh— 
on which until the year 1gor at least one pair of snipe nested—little 
undrained land remains. ‘The meadow-pipit is another bird awaiting 
extermination as a breeding species ; one pair only could be found nest- 
ing at Flitwick during the spring of 1902, and the only other haunts of 
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