IRatuve IRotes : 
Zhe, Selborne Society’s nDagasine. 
No. 55. JULY, 1894. VoL. V. 
THE BRITISH AVIFAUNA— ITS CHANGES AND 
PRESENT CHARACTER. 
E have here* such a painful picture of our poverty (and 
increasing poverty) in wild birds, that some remarks in 
Nature Notes upon the subject — more especially 
upon the causes of the change which has come over 
our avifauna and in defence of it in its modern character — may 
not be out of place. 
Mr. Hudson gives us a sketch of thirteen species of birds 
which he says are lost to the British avifauna. But he does 
more than this. He proceeds to belittle our avifauna, and 
writes of the “hateful monotony which English bird life usually 
presents ” in a way which we are glad to think will not be ac- 
quiesced in by the larger proportion of field naturalists who have 
made the birds of this country their especial study. 
To begin with, Mr. Hudson requests us to strike out of the 
British list (of about 400 species) about 150 wanderers from the 
distant parts of Europe, from Africa, Asia and America; although 
many of these are quite likely to be seen by some of our watchful 
ornithologists in any year. It is strange if some also do not 
come to us and escape observation. It is very hard to draw the 
line between passing visitors on migration, and accidental visitors 
in many cases. 
But our author is not content with this lopping off of 150 
species. He requires that about twenty more (“ only occasional 
visitors ”) shall be got rid of in the same summary way. I 
must really demur to the removal of some of these. It is true 
that only about thirty-five or forty examples of the woodchat 
* Lost British Birds, by W. H. Hudson. With fifteen drawings by A. D. 
McCormick. Published by the Society for the Protection of Birds. I’rice 6d. 
