X INTRODUCTION. 



and, indeed, it may be said that the only two species which 

 attract attention as coming repeatedly from the African con- 

 tinent hoth belong to this order. A single African web- 

 footed bird, the Spur-winged Goose (P. gambensis), has been 

 recorded to have been met with at large in this country on 

 four different occasions, although it has been supposed by 

 some that these specimens may have escaped from a state of 

 semidomestication upon some ornamental waters. 



But while speculating upon the isolated occurrences of a 

 few African birds in this country, at intervals perhaps of 

 several years, it should be borne in mind that half the sum- 

 mer migrants which visit us annually and rear their young 

 here, such as the Hirundines, Sylvia atricapilla, S. hortensis, 

 S. cinerea, Salicaria phragmitis, S. strepera, and others, spend 

 a considerable portion of their existence during the winter 

 months in some part of Africa. 



The question therefore is not one of possibility, but of 

 design ; and this strikes us the more forcibly when reviewing 

 the large number of species (above forty) which have come 

 to us, or are supposed to have come to us, from America. 

 These are : — Astur atrieapillus (3), N. furcatus (5), Buteo 

 lineatus (1, doubtfully). Scops asio (2, doubtfully), N. acadica 

 (1, doubtfully), Vireosylvia olivacea (1), Regulus calendula (1), 

 Anthus ludovicianus (9, doubtfully), Loxia leucoptera (4), 

 AgeliEus phceniceus (9), Sturnella magna (3), Picus villosus (2), 

 P.pubescens (1), P- auratus (1), Cuculus americanus (5), C. 

 erythrophthalmus (1), Ceryle alcyon {2) , Hirundo purpurea (2, 

 doubtfully), H. bicolor (1), Columba . migratoria (5)*, Ortyx 

 virginianus {mtrodnceA) , ^gialitis vocifernis, Totanus flavipes 

 (3), T. solitarius (1), Actiturus bartramius (4), Tringites ru- 

 fescens (15), Tringoides macularius (16), Tringa maculata (16) 



* Four only are noticed at p. 128 ; but Thompson mentions another 

 (Nat. Hist. Irel. (Birds) vol. iii. p. 443), as procured neai- Tralee in 1848. 



