ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
Nature Notes: 
THE SELBORNE SOCIETrS MAGAZINE. 
No. 213. 
SEPTEMBER, 1907. 
VoL. XVIII. 
BIRD NOTES IN NORMANDY AND CENTRAL 
FRANCE. 
A\TNG for some years past been accustomed, before 
starting for a holiday, to searcli for information as 
to localities the back volumes of natural history 
magazines, especially Nature Notes, it occurs to 
me that a few jottings about the birds of Normandy may be 
helpful to those readers who pursue the same plan. Looked 
at in this way, the following observations may not be con- 
sidered entirely as a dry catalogue. They were made during a 
month’s cycling tour, taken from July 24 to August 22, 1903. 
As a general conclusion, I consider that the complaint as to 
the destruction of birds in France, so far as concerns the 
five departments visited, must not be pressed too seriously. 
Certainly the house-sparrow was not over plentiful, except 
perhaps in the Department of Calvados. It would scarcely be 
an exaggeration to say that chaffinches were almost as well 
represented as their hotly persecuted comrades. Blackbirds 
and thrushes were particularly scarce for such common birds : 
strangely enough, the missel-thrush, both by noise and in 
person, was as much in evidence as its more musical congener. 
The chiff-chaff, willow-wren, wood- wren, and whitethroat were 
by no means abundant, but allowance must be made for the 
fact that the three last had ceased to sing, and all four might 
easily be overlooked in the moulting season, more especially 
by those a-wheel. On July 30, howev'er, I heard the grasshopper 
warbler in the Forest of Brotonne. By the British earthwork at 
Puy, near Dieppe, on July 25, at 5.30 in the morning, I heard 
the following birds singing: yellow-hammer, blackbird, black- 
cap, stonechat, whinchat and willow-wren. The blackcap and 
whinchat I heard no more, but the stonechat was everywhere. 
Yellow-hammers could be seen by the half-dozen in almost 
any district, and an occasional corn-bunting perched on the 
hedgerow. 
