ARE GUERNSEY BIRDS BRITISH ? 



305 



also includes a long stretch of land which we know to be 

 part of " la belle France," and then is borne in upon us, as 

 perhaps at no other time, the fact of our nearness to French 

 soil. We look in vain for a bit of old England ; while here, 

 close at hand, almost within touching distance as it seems, 

 are the smiling cliffs and dales of a land with which we do 

 not claim nationality much as we may love it as a holiday 

 resort. No, Ave Channel Islanders, I take it, are one and 

 all proud to be part and parcel of the great British Empire — 

 proud to be natives of what are, if fragments only, the oldest 

 bits of the English Crown. 



But I am digressing and must proceed with the subject 

 matter of this paper. Miss Constance Bertie Carey who 

 originated the correspondence, and is often quoted by Cecil 

 Smith in the "Birds of Guernsey," lived at Candie and was 

 the youngest daughter of Sir Stafford Carey who was Bailiff 

 of Guernsey from 1845 to 1883. Miss Carey, who was only 

 18 years of age at the time and evidently a very promising- 

 young Naturalist, died on January 7th, 1877, at the pre- 

 mature age of 23 years. 



Miss Carey's letter to the Zoologist (May, 1872, 

 page 3,066) ran as follows : — 



" Are Guernsey Birds British ?— This seems to me to be rather 

 a puzzling question, because in some respects the birds differ from 

 the British ; I mean not individually, but that birds- are found 

 here which are rare in Britain, and common birds in Britain are 

 not always found here. This is rather important, because if it is 

 decided that Guernsey birds are not British, those shot here can- 

 not appear in British collections. It all depends whether the 

 Channel Islands are within the imaginary boundary beyond which 

 all birds that are shot are not considered British ; then this 

 imaginary line cannot extend equally round Britain, for Calais 

 is nearer England than we are here, and so French birds would 

 be British. I shall be glad of a solution to my difficulty. 



" C. B. Carey." 



To this the Editor of the Zoologist (the late Edward 

 Newman) added: "I shall be glad to receive opinions from 

 more competent Ornithologists before I give my own." 



The first reply to Miss Carey's query came from the 

 Rev. O. Pickard-Cambridge, of Bloxworth Rectory, Bland- 

 ford, and appeared in the June "Zoologist" (page 3,109). 

 He considered it, not a naturalist's but a collector s question, 

 and thought the matter would be easy of solution if an 

 agreement could be arrived at as to a definition of the word 

 " British." " British " might mean found in a state of nature, 

 firsts in the British Empire, or, secondly, merely in Great 

 Britain and Ireland, with their adjacent islets. As no col- 



