"ARE GUERNSEY BIRDS BRITISH ? " 



A Statement of the opinions of Naturalists on the subject as 

 gathered from a Correspondence in the "Zoologist" of 1872. 



BY BASIL T. ROW8WELL. 

 Read at the Monthly Meeting of the Society, Nov. loth, 1911. 



A few months ago Mr. Pitts put into my hands the volume 

 of the Zoologist for 1872, and glancing through its pages I 

 found it contained a number of Ornithological Notes from 

 Guernsey contributed by Mr. Cecil Smith, the author of 

 The Birds of Guernsey and the Neighbouring Islands, Al- 

 der ney, Sark, Herm and Jethou, a useful book published in 

 1879 ; and by [Miss] C. B. Carey, of Candie. I found in 

 addition that the volume also contained a very interesting 

 correspondence which arose out of a query of Miss Carey's 

 in the May Number as to whether Guernsey birds were 

 British. Several gentlemen, well known in the World of 

 Natural History, took part in the correspondence which ran 

 through six numbers of the Zoologist. Believing that 

 extracts from these letters, showing the individual opinion 

 of the writers on the subject, would prove interesting to the 

 Members of our Society generally, and not to those of the 

 Ornithological Section alone, I went carefully through the 

 correspondence with a view to giving, at one of the monthlj^ 

 meetings, the gist of Avhat those men of science thought 

 about it. 



As you will see from what follows the sore point was 

 that of Geographical position. The Channel Islands, geo- 

 graphically considered, are certainly more French than 

 English as any map of Europe very plainly declares, while 

 occasionally in unusually clear weather it is not necessary 

 even to produce a map to prove this. On such days (and 

 they are all too rare) what a magnificent panorama we 

 Guernsey people are privileged to feast our eyes upon. 

 From our central position the whole of the Norman Archi- 

 pelago lies spread out in beauty before us. Probably from 

 nowhere else can it be seen to such perfection. But the view 

 [1911.] 



