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ON THE OCCASIONAL APPEARANCE IN ENGLAND OF 

 THE CRESTED TIT. 



By J. H. Gurney, F.Z.S. 



The Crested Tit, Parus cristatus t Linn., being exclusively 

 a Scotch bird, so far as our isles are concerned, and even there 

 considered very rare or at least extremely local, doubt has 

 been continually thrown, but with some injustice, on the records 

 of its appearance in England. 



As it is migratory, there is nothing remarkable in its being 

 found in England or Ireland, and it is not clear why there should 

 still be this doubt about it ; but perhaps we have all taken our 

 cue from the late Mr. Gould, who in his * Birds of Great Britain,' 

 says of this species, that " in England it is never seen." It may 

 be that this dictum, coming from so high an authority, has been 

 accepted without very much enquiry. Another reason is that 

 few are aware, probably, until they read the annexed list, how 

 many times it has occurred in England, or rather is said to have 

 occurred, on what seems respectable authority ; and very likely 

 the list does not include every instance of its occurrence, though 

 reference has been made to almost every printed local avifauna. 



We have comparatively ancient authority for its being an 

 English bird, for so far back as 1797 that old writer, W. Lewin, 

 remarked that it had been "killed in Scotland, and also in 

 Yorkshire" ('British Birds,' iv. p. 46). 



Yorkshire has been especially favoured by its visits, for 

 no less than five are quoted in Messrs. Clarke and Koebuck's 

 'Yorkshire Vertebrata,' to which a sixth, shot at Keighley in 

 August, 1887, has to be added (' Naturalist/ 1888, p. 15), and 

 a seventh seen at Meersbrook, of which mention will be made 

 further on. 



In the county of Durham it has been shot once, on Sunderland 

 Moor, in January, 1850, and the specimen is said (Zool. p. 2766) 

 to be in the possession of a Mr. Calvert, whom I have tried to 

 trace, but in vain. It is also mentioned in the list of birds con- 

 tributed by William Proctor to the Kev. G. Ornsby's * Sketches 

 of Durham,' p. 197, as "very rare," the authority being, as 

 appears from Hancock's 'Birds of Northumberland and Durham' 

 (p. 76, note), a Mr. P. Farrow, who saw three or four nearWitton 

 Gilbert. 





