33 



BIRDS IN NORTHrWEST LINCOLNSHIRE. 



1800 TO 1825. 



Rev. EDWARD ADRIAN WOODRUFFE-PEACOCK, L.Th., F.L.S., F.G.S., 



Vicar of Cadney; Organising and Botanical Secretary, Lincolnshire Naturalists' Union. 



My grandfather, Edward Shaw Peacock, born 1793, died 1861, 

 of Bottesford Moors, left some MS. notes, of which the follow- 

 ing is a copy. He was one of the chief promoters of the 

 warping", by which Bottesford Moors and the surrounding 

 estates in the Trent level were transformed from sandy peat 

 bogs into rich agricultural land. The scientific names and other 

 notes inclosed in brackets are mine, and have been added after 

 consulting- the wide experience and knowledge of the late 

 John Cordeaux, M.B.O. U. The original MS. refers only to 

 Nat. Hist. Division 2 : — 



Before the lands on the commons (of the Trent level — 1 the 

 lands ' being the various portions enclosed at one time) were 

 warped the following birds were very common : — 

 Bittern (Botaurus stellaris Linn.) or Butterbump, from the 

 noise they made. (He left the stuffed skin of a female 

 bird. The male, shot a few days later, was in the collection 

 of the late Henry Healey, of Ashby Decoy. I have often 

 seen both, but do not know where either are now.) 

 Glead Hawk {Milvus ictinus Savigny. Common formerly. 

 The last nest I have heard of was taken in Bullington 

 Wood, Nat. Hist. Div. 7, in 1S70). 

 A large Blue Hawk. (I have no doubt that the bird referred 

 to was the Hen-Harrier, Circus cyaneus Linn. It nested 

 at Raventhorpe, in the same Div. , due east a few miles, as 

 late as 1872. The Marsh-Harrier, Circus aeruginosus 

 Linn., I have never found called a Blue Hawk, though we 

 know it was not very uncommon at that date either. It 

 certainly nested in the Isle of Axholme, just over the river 

 Trent, in 1836. Other species locally called by this name 

 are the next in our list ; also the Peregrine Falcon, for 

 Which I have never heard of records on the Trent, though it 

 is not uncommon on the sea coast on migration, and the 

 Merlin. The qualifying adjective excludes this species, 

 which nested close by on Manton Common in 1862 and 

 1875. For the former great abundance of the Hen-Harrier 

 in North Lincolnshire see a letter in 'The Field,' 27th 

 November 1886, by the late Rev. Edward Elmhirst.) 



1900 February i. 



