312 



ARE GUERNSEY BIRDS BRITISH ? 



September 14th : " During yesterday temperature reached 

 74 deg. at Jersey, but in most other localities it remained 

 below 65 deg. ; at a number of stations the maxima were 

 54 deg. to 60 deg. Rain fell in nearly all parts of the 

 Kingdom, as a rule in very small quantities, only Dover 

 and London registering half-an-inch. Jersey reports 7f 

 hours of bright sunshine, and Douglas 7 hours, but generally 

 the records were very small, none in many instances." 

 Again on Saturday, October 14th, the remarks included 

 the following : " Rain has fallen in many i)arts of the 

 kingdom, heavily in some south-eastern and southern local- 

 ities. At Dover the measurement was 1*03 in., and at Jersey, 

 where a thunderstorm occurred, as much as 2*42 in. 



And just to give one more case in point let me mention 

 that well-known work on English Botany — Sowerby. The 

 Channel Islands certainly figure in this standard work and 

 yet its title page reads : " English Botany ; or, Coloured 

 figures of British Plants." Some of the " British Plants " 

 indeed figured in Sowerby are not found in the British 

 Islands properly so called at all. 



On the other hand and in perfect agreement with Mr. 

 Pickard-Cambridge's " simple solution " a book was published 

 in 1867, the author of which, Samuel Octavius Gray, worded 

 his title page : " British Sea-weeds : An Introduction to the 

 Study of the Marine Alga3 of Great Britain, Ireland and 

 the Channel Islands." And in 1879 the Rev. W. A. Leigh- 

 ton, B.A., wrote a work entitled, " The Lichen-flora of Great 

 Britain, Ireland and the Channel Islands." 



A few days ngo while referring to a paper on " Crustacea," 

 by our friend Mr. Joseph Sine!, in one of the early volumes 

 of our Society's Transactions ( 1 889), I chanced upon the follow- 

 ing statement which speaks for itself. After quoting from the 

 Zoologist and other authorities Mr. Sinel continued : " In 

 spealdng of "British Waters" I must here remind my friends 

 that at the time of the publication of the above records these 

 included the whole of the English Channel: the lines laid 

 down at one of the receut meetings of the British Association 

 now place these islands [the Channel Islands] beyond the 

 boundary." In spite of this, however, the "Ray Society" 

 has quite recently published a work entitled "A Monograph 

 of the British Annelids," by Professor William C. Mcintosh, 

 which contains some beautiful coloured illustrations of marine 

 worms found at Guernsey, Herm and Jersey ! 



In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will 

 agree with me that in spite of the fact that, considered 



