122 
NATURE NOTES. 
have been procured in England during the century, while ten or 
a dozen more are said to have been seen. But this is evidence 
that these islands are perhaps outside, but not far outside, its 
usual range, and it has even been recorded as breeding on more 
than one occasion. Of the golden oriole and the hoopoe, how- 
ever, we must claim that they are almost (if not quite) annual 
visitors to some part of southern England. The great grey 
shrike (in one of its forms), although it comes in quite small 
numbers,"' is as much a winter visitor to our shores as the 
fieldfare : while if we have little hold on the gipsy-like rose- 
coloured pastor, yet the waxwing and Lapland bunting, of 
which visit and remain with us for a considerable time, may be 
fairly entitled to have their portraits and descriptions retained in 
our histories of British birds. Any, or all, of these species are 
quite likely to visit our shores within the next twelve months ; 
some of them we may be sure will do so. It is neither likely 
nor desirable that ever}' species of bird should be equally, or 
nearly equally, numerous in every part of their respective ranges. 
Indeed if such were the case half the interest of English “ bird- 
men ” in their study would be gone ; for the possibility and hope 
of meeting with some local species or some rare wanderer is 
ever before the field ornithologist. 
The weeding-out process, writes Mr. Hudson, “ has now- 
brought us down to the species which are actually extinct, and 
to those w'hose extinction is imminent — probably thirty in num- 
ber.” But w'e may fairly hope that the position of every one of 
these thirty species is not quite so bad as this. Some species are 
mentioned as either lost or so reduced in numbers, that it is well 
nigh impossible to get a sight of them even by travelling long 
distances, and spending many days in waiting and watching. 
Of two of the species enumerated, a friend, who had spent one 
day in Wales, wrote only the other day ; “ There were .... 
a good many ravens and buzzards ; ”f and another friend saw- 
two kites in the principality a short time previously. To con- 
tinue the list, I have only once been in the haunts of the chough, 
but I saw' choughs. The grey lag goose, banished by drainage 
from the English fens, still breeds in the Hebrides and some of 
the northern counties of Scotland. The great skua, ahvays very 
restricted in its distribution, still breeds in Unst and Foula, and 
is protected there. The Hartford warbler, which has certainly 
suffered greatly from severe winters, was never a generally 
diffused species ; but it still breeds in most of the southern 
counties, and is even stated to be apparently extending its range 
w'estward and northward. Drainage has destroyed the breeding 
haunts of the bearded tit in most counties formerly occupied by 
this beautiful species, but there is no evidence to connect its 
disappearance from the Thames valley with direct human 
It is probably not an abundant bird in northern Europe, 
t I have myself seen four buzzards in the air at the same moment. 
