556 
recognise the face of the country, so completely have the olcl 
natural features and landmarks been removed. 
In its present and modern conditions, then, our county offers, 
unless we except its lonely and unchanged sea coast, scarcely 
any attractions for resident or migratory birds, than are to be 
found in other districts; comparing it with Norfolk it is 
positively at a disadvantage, having no portion of its wide extent 
in any way comparable to the broad and breck districts of that 
county. 
It will not be necessary to my purpose to recapitulate those oft- 
quoted notices of the old fauna of Lincolnshire which have been 
made by various writers, from William of Malmsbury (temp. 1200) 
to good old Montagu at the commencement of the present century. 
These records are more or less familiar to us all, and we question 
much whether any amount of research would add many facts to 
those already known respecting the avi-fauna of those olden 
times. I shall, therefore, confine my notice rather to the actual 
and present condition of Lincolnshire with reference to the 
range and distribution of certain species. I may add, that with 
few exceptions, these notes have been collected subsequent to the 
publication of my notice, in 1872, of the “Birds of the Humber 
District,” and I have endeavoured, as far as possible, not to trench 
on old ground. 
Witli the exception of the Common Buzzard (Buteo vulgaris), 
which still nests in one or two localities, the larger birds of prey 
have disappeared as residents, and now only occur as rare and 
occasional immigrants in the autumn, or during their return 
journey northward in the spring. 
Since 1872 there have been two occurrences of the Osprey, both 
in the autumn, and in the same neighbourhood. The last of these 
was an immature example, shot at Tathwell, near Louth, in the 
autumn of 1878. In 1871, May 23rd, a Goshawk was shot in 
the same neighbourhood. This bird was still in the immature 
plumage of the first year. 
The Peregrine nests nowhere in the county. This, the greatest 
wanderer of the larger falcons, invariably occurs in the autumn and 
winter in certain favourite haunts, its food consisting mainly of 
the wild ringdove and the domestic pigeon. Of the smaller 
Falconidce the Hobby nests in both North and Mid Lincolnshire. 
