io 6 
NATURE NOTES. 
attributed to the beneficial effect of the Acts. Of the increase 
or decrease of summer migrants it is less easy to speak, because 
their numbers are apt to vary in different years. For instance 
the blackcap, which was unusually numerous last spring, is 
rather scarce this year, and was late in coming. This falling off 
in numbers can hardly be owing to the attempt to winter in 
England made by this species on rather an extensive scale in 
1890-91 — unfortunate choice 
We may safely speak of the remarkable increase of two 
species. The redstart about twenty years ago was, to the best 
of my recollection, quite a scarce bird ; it certainly remained 
anything but common for a good many years after that time. 
Now it is quite common, and may fairly be called numerous. I 
will not attempt to say how many pairs there are in and just 
round the village at the present time, but they must amount to 
a good number. The whinchat is another species which I used 
to look upon as uncommon — a bird especially worth stopping to 
look at, that is to say. Now we see pairs all about, and it seems 
to visit us in steadily increasing numbers. But this is one of the 
birds which is particularly apt to vary in numbers in different 
years, so that observations on this point must be carried on 
over several seasons. No cause affecting these two species 
while they are here can be assigned for this increase. 
Some birds have decreased, on the other hand ; and it is 
equally impossible to account for the falling off. Why, for in- 
stance, should the nightingale have practically deserted North 
Oxfordshire ? Five-and-twenty years ago I have good au- 
thority for saying that they came in some numbers to the parish 
of Bodicote, and people were in the habit of walking up a 
certain lane bordering a plantation to hear them. During the 
time I lived at Bodicote I never heard one. With regard to 
this parish (Bloxham), I am told by several people who are 
well acquainted with the nightingale, that up to within ten or 
fifteen years ago it could be heard in all the little spinneys 
round the village, and even in gardens in the village itself. It 
visits us no longer, and in the five springs I have passed here I 
have never heard it. It formerly sang on the western outskirts 
of Banbury, but is heard no longer now. The same may be 
said of many places in the neighbourhood, arid I do not know 
of any locality in the immediate district where the nightingale 
can now be heard. No change in the condition, aspect or cul- 
tivation of the country, which could account for our desertion 
by this bird, has taken place. A iittle further north, where the 
county runs up into a point between Warwickshire and North- 
*811106 this was written, sometime early in May, there must have been a 
further arrival of blackcaps in this district ; by May 14th they were fairly com- 
mon. Last year I saw the first on April 7th, and had seen several by the 15th 
of that month. This year the 22nd was my earliest date, and I had no report 
from Oxford until May 1st, but the recorder added that he saw numbers the next 
day. 
