CH. Iv.] VISITATION OF BUNTINGS. 197 
On my return from abroad (I think in the year 
1845), I found that the western part of the Island 
had been visited, about the month of March, 
during a cold backward spring, by multitudes of 
a small bird, which were described as about the 
size of, and scarcely distinguishable from, Titlarks, 
and to which the labourers gave the odd name of 
“Norway Widgeons,’ why I never could under- 
stand, nor they explain. They were subsequently 
found dead in great numbers along the shore on 
the south side of the Island, from which circum- 
stance it would appear that they were immigrants, 
who had come to us 7 transitu, and failed in their 
attempt to proceed further. During their tem= 
porary residence in the Island they caused great 
havoc among the young green crops. I endea- 
voured, but without success, to obtain a specimen 
of them, and was therefore unable to ascertain 
the species with any certainty. A friend of mine, 
who saw them, imagines that they were Titlarks. 
I am myself rather inclined to fancy they must 
have been Buntings. 
The number of Woodpigeons has of late years 
decidedly increased very largely in the Island ; nor 
is this increase, I believe, confined to that locality, 
as I have repeatedly heard the same fact noticed 
