THE CIRL BUNTING IN GREAT BRITAIN, 179 



Cornwall, and it was reported to him as common about Liskeard. 

 Mr. Arthur H. Macpherson saw one near Bude, one day he was 

 in Cornwall in the spring of 1891. 



Denbighshire. — Mr. C. G. Beale, of Edgbaston, gives me the 

 following particulars of a very interesting isolated colony : — " The 

 Cirl Bunting is common in that part of the valley of the Ceiriog, 

 in Denbighshire, known as the Glyn Valley, which extends from 

 Chirk to the village of Llansaintfiraid- Glyn- Ceiriog, but com- 

 monest for about a mile below that village. I have spent a part of 

 the summer and autumn of each year since 1875 in that valley, and 

 although I felt sure that the bird I heard and saw sitting on the 

 topmost branches of the large trees was the Cirl Bunting, I did 

 not get a specimen until 1881, but since then I have obtained 

 several, and possess skins." I may mention that Mr. Beale 

 kindly sent a skin of a male for my inspection. He believes 

 its local distribution is very limited, and continues : — " I never 

 hear it four miles further up the valley, where I spend every 

 autumn, and I have only once seen or heard it in the Dee Valley 

 about Llangollen, three miles further northward, but in passing 

 up and down the Glyn Valley it is always to be heard in the 

 summer at the same points. I should say that its frequency is 

 limited to a distance of two miles in length, and it likes the 

 bottom of the valley" (in litt., April, 1891). In a subsequent 

 letter Mr. Beale enters more fully into the interesting point of 

 the local distribution, and gives his means of observation. He 

 writes: — "In 1875 I took a shooting in the Glyn Valley, and 

 lived at a house called New Hall, visiting it frequently in spring 

 and summer to fish in the Ceiriog. This continued until 1883, 

 and I was frequently over at Llangollen (walking there) .... 

 never without keeping my ears and eyes open for birds. I only 

 once heard the Cirl Bunting about Llangollen, but it was to be 

 heard continually about New Hall, and it was from a row of tall 

 spruce firs in front of the latter house that I got all my specimens 

 at roosting time. In 1883 I moved four miles up the valley to 

 Llanarmon Tower, which I still rent, and I drive ten miles to 

 Chirk Station, often waiting about Chirk Park for trains. The 

 bird is to be heard in the old district. I do not hear it at Chirk, 

 and I am able to say with some certainty that as the valley rises 

 up to Llanarmon from New Hall it does not occur. ... I should 

 say that New Hall is (I estimate) about 400 or 500 feet above the 



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