A HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE 



much to the correct knowledge of the moorland fauna. In the third 

 edition of this work, 1896, is a chapter on the 'Birds of the Moor and 

 its Borders.' 



The pursuit of British ornithology had by this time become more 

 systematic, and Yarrell's British Birds, published from 1837 to 1843, g^ve 

 a great impetus to the study and became the standard work on the 

 subject. The Rev. Robert Holdsworth, rector of Brixham, who had 

 been a correspondent of Montagu's, furnished much valuable information 

 on Devonshire birds in a series of letters to Mr. Yarrell, and is repeatedly 

 mentioned by him in his book. For more than forty years however 

 the only publications relating to the ornithology of the county were the 

 notes and articles contributed by a host of observers, which appeared in 

 various natural history periodicals, the transactions of local societies and 

 the lists in guide books. In the Transactions of the Plymouth Institution 

 (vol i. 1862-3), appeared 'A Catalogue of the Mammals, Birds, etc., 

 indigenous to or observed in the County of Devon,' by J. Brooking 

 Rowe, F.L.S., who received much assistance from the late Mr. John 

 Gatcombe of Stonehouse. The notes contributed by the latter from 

 1851 to 1855 to the Naturalist, and from 1855 to the time of his decease 

 in 1887 to the Zoologist, were most valuable, and furnish a mine of in- 

 formation respecting Devonshire birds in general, and to those occurring 

 near Plymouth in particular. John Gatcombe probably did more to 

 elucidate the avifauna of the county than any other ornithologist since 

 the time of Montagu. In 1891 Mr. W. E. Pidsley an^ the late Rev. 

 H. A. Macpherson published the Birds of Devonshire, which was fol- 

 lowed in 1892 by the larger work, The Birds of Devon, by W. S. M. 

 D'Urban and the Rev. M. A. Mathew. A supplement to the latter 

 work was published in 1895, and contains some information contributed 

 by Mr. E. A. S. Elliot of Kingsbridge, who has done much for the or- 

 nithology of his most interesting district, and has published numerous 

 valuable papers in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association and other 

 scientific periodicals. The information he has afforded has been of 

 great service to the writer in compiling the following list of Devonshire 

 birds. 



Note. — As the example of the black-headed warbler enumerated 

 under No. 1 8 of the following list was only seen, and not actually ob- 

 tained, and as that species has not yet been admitted to the British list, 

 it should perhaps not have been numbered. 



I. Mistle-Thrush. Turdus viscivorus, hinn. mistle-thrushes on the night of 12 October, 

 Locally, Holm Screech. 1901, at the Eddystone Lighthouse. They 

 A common resident, breeding freely in were seen in great numbers in the Kings- 

 orchards and gardens. In August there is a ''"'ige district at the end of September 1902, 

 considerable influx of migrants from the north by Mr. E. A. S. Elliot. In Montagu's time 

 and east, and they appear to congregate in the t^^'s species appears to have been much less 

 extreme south-west of the county, prior to plentiful than it is at present. A severe 

 their departure for the south. Mr. W. winter however diminishes its numbers for a 

 Eagle Clarke observed a great passage of time. 



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