Nov., 1892. BIRDS ABOUT ELLESMERE AND LLANSILIN. 
241 
ON THE BIRDS OF THE LAKE DISTRICT ABOUT 
ELLESMERE 
AND THE HILL DISTRICT ABOUT LLANSILIN.* 
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT OSWESTRY 
BY ARTHUR T. JEBB, ESQ., 
THE PRESIDENT OF THE MIDLAND UNION OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
My address must necessarily be dry and disjointed; 
dry because I am neither a ready speaker nor particularly 
learned about birds, and disjointed because even if I bad 
tlie tongue of an angel, together with the knowledge of 
a Yarrell or a Montagu, it would be impossible for me to 
deal naturally, lucidly, and succinctly with so wide a subject 
in so short a time. In order to make my discourse less 
disjointed I will refer, for the most part, to the birds of 
the lake district about Ellesmere, and to the birds of the 
hill district about Llansilin ; and in order to make my 
discourse iess dry I will introduce a philological element, 
explaining sometimes the meaning of birds’ names, for such 
information is seldom to be obtained either from bird books 
or dictionaries. 
So far as I can judge, the number of species of birds 
in our district may be roughly put down at 200 ; of 
these 65 are residents, 85 emigrants, and 100 occasional 
visitors. Some years ago a writer in one of the magazines, 
while treating of the Shropshire meres, spoke of the osprey 
as wheeling about over Blakemere until it was brought 
down by the keeper’s gun. That was an imaginative 
touch. The mere was too near the canal and the high 
road for an osprey to have anything to say to it. The 
only osprey I have ever heard of in this part of the 
world is a fine specimen caught in a trap at Petton in 1858. 
The word osprey is a corruption of ossifrage (Latin, 
ossi/'raga), the bone-breaker. Time was when the osprey, or 
it may have been the white-tailed eagle, was a permanent 
resident in this neighbourhood, but it was a very long time 
ago—perhaps as long ago as the days of King Edward the 
Confessor. High above Wliitemere is an elevated point of 
land crowned by a wood. This place is still called Yarness; 
that is to say, earn-naes, pure Anglo-Saxon for the eagle’s 
ness, sharp bluff, or headland. Having started with the 
falcon family, I will push on with the hawks. At Pistyll 
* We regret that we cannot give a more complete report of Mr. 
Jebb’s interesting presidential address. For what is here given we are 
indebted to the Oswestry Advertiser .— [Eds. “ Mid. Nat.”] 
