( 223 ) 



OENITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM SURREY. 



By John A. Bucknill, M.A. 



At the conclusion of my last contribution upon this subject 

 to the pages of ' The Zoologist' (1901, pp. 247-254), I mentioned 

 that I had received a large number of further valuable notes 

 which I shortly hoped to publish ; but, as they turned out 

 to be of a most voluminous character, entailing a great amount 

 of labour in their perusal and examination, I have, until now, 

 been unable to present them in a connected or satisfactory form. 

 The notes comprised the observations and the results of a very 

 exhaustive research upon the Birds of Surrey, compiled by two 

 gentlemen (Messrs. J. M. Mitchell and F. Styan), undertaken 

 and begun about the year 1878, and continued for some years 

 after that date, with the view of a subsequent publication in 

 book form. Owing, however, to various causes arising from the 

 necessities of business, and the permanent residence in China of 

 the latter of these two gentlemen, their labours were never com- 

 pleted, and they have now, with great kindness, placed the whole 

 of their notes at my complete disposal. When I add that these 

 records fill the pages of some dozen or more large note-books ; 

 that the authors were well acquainted with some of the older 

 county naturalists (Mr. W. Stafford, of Godalming, and Mr. 

 Mansell, of Farnham, in particular) ; and that, besides having 

 available to themselves sources to which, for reasons unavoidable 

 (such as death or removal of informants), I had no access, they 

 had left no stone unturned to discover and verify the many 

 occurrences of the rarer visitors to the county which they had 

 had brought to their notice in their work — it will be recognized 

 at once that their contribution to a correct account of the avi- 

 fauna of Surrey is of considerable importance. Two things 

 strike one at once in perusing and classifying these notes : firstly, 

 the number of records which ten years blot out from even the 

 careful investigator ; and, secondly, how very curiously my 



