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A COMPARATIVE LIST of the BIRDS of HELIGOLAND 

 AND THOSE of the BRITISH ISLANDS. 



By Henry Seebohm. 



The publication of the long-expected work by Heinrich Gatke, 

 to which allusion has been already made (p. 216), enables the 

 reader for the first time to realise the remarkable number of 

 species of birds which have been found in the world-famed 

 island of Heligoland, and to sift the actual captures from the 

 more or less doubtful list of birds which have only been seen, or 

 supposed to have been seen, on that wonderful little island. 



Of the 396 species included in the list, there are more than 40 

 of which the evidence of their occurrence leaves much to be 

 desired. In a few of these cases there seems to be some doubt 

 whether the examples really were procured on Heligoland ; and 

 in some cases the examples have been lost, and their identification 

 rests upon the memory of one of the brothers Aenckens, who 

 recognised them years afterwards from skins. In many cases 

 the birds were not captured, and the correctness of their identi- 

 fication cannot be proved. There are no fewer than 75 species 

 which have only once been shot on the island, though in some 

 cases it is supposed that other examples have been seen near 

 enough for identification. 



There are, however, nearly 300 species which have been pro- 

 cured more than once upon the island, a large proportion of 

 which pass over regularly every spring and autumn, some of them 

 occasionally in immense numbers. 



The Heligoland list is very rich in the typical Turdince Geo- 

 cichla varia appears in both lists, but the G. sibirica of the 

 British list is replaced— on what seems to be very insufficient 

 evidence — by G. clauma. The four British species of Turdus (or 

 five if T. migratorius be included) have all occurred on Heligo- 

 land, and, in addition, three other American species appear in 

 the Heligoland list — T. sivainsoni, T. pallasi, and T. fuscescc?is, 

 but the correct identification of the two latter is very doubtful. 

 In addition to the three British species of Merula, three others 

 are recorded — M.fuscatus, M. ruficollis, and M. pallens, but the 

 identification of the last is unsatisfactory. 



