557 
Between thirty and forty years ago it was a very regular spring 
visitant, and nested in all our large woodlands. The Merlin was 
then as constant a visitant in the autumn and winter, even remain- 
ing to nest in the county. Now it regularly occurs in the autumn 
in North Lincolnshire, and on the coast. The last eggs of the 
Kite were taken from a nest in Bulliagton wood, near Wragby, in 
1870; since this I have met with no occurrence of its nesting. 
►Sir Charles Anderson, of Lea, in a recent communication remarks : 
“ I can recollect the fork-tailed kite so very common, that when I 
drove to Lincoln by the low road [say 1811], you might see three 
or four pair sailing over the Fosdike between Saxilby and Lincoln. 
They were still more common in the woods at Fiskerton, and all 
the way between Lincoln and Boston. I remember,” lie says, 
“one summer evening in, I think 1827, seeing three or four sailing 
high above the great tower of the Minster, as I was sitting in the 
garden of the Burghersh Chantry House.” Lord Lilford wrote 
me in 1875: “The last kites I saw alive and wild in England were 
throe, which rose together from the side of the railroad as we 
passed in the train about two miles south of Lincoln, in September 
1850.” Ten years later than this, four or five pair might some- 
times bo seen together on the river below Lincoln, where they 
almost daily came to feed on any iloating garbage carried down 
from the city. In this autumn (1878) I was fortunate in seeing a 
pair sailing over the Humber marshes : these were probably immi- 
grants from the north on passage through the county. The only 
small Falconidse now in any degree common are the Kestrel and 
Sparrow-hawk ; the former especially numerous in the autumn in 
the marsh districts near the coast. Many of these seen at that 
season are undoubtedly immigrants from the Continent. 
The Long-eared Owl (Asio otusj has certainly become more 
numerous in North Lincolnshire, and there has also been, from 
ono cause or the other, a perceptible decrease in that useful and 
harmless bird the Barn Owl (Aluco jhtmmeus). The pulling 
down of those great thatched barns, sheds, and outhouses, once so 
common in the district, which used to harbour swarms of rats, 
mice, and sparrows, and their replacement by modern agricultural 
buildings, also the restoration of our churches, has had much to do 
with the extermination of the Barn Owl. 
The Great Grey Shrike ( Lanins cxcubitor) occurs most regularly 
