lviii 
PROCEEDINGS, 
Visit to the G-ardens op the Zoological Society, 
Regent’s Park, London, 11th June, 1910. 
A tour of the Gardens was made under the guidance of 
Mr. Charles Oldham, P.Z.S., who contributed a very full account 
of it to the ‘ Herts Advertiser,’ from which the most interesting 
information with regard only to British species seen is here given. 
The otters, like many other creatures in the Gardens, have 
adapted themselves to the altered conditions which captivity 
implies. Naturally a shy beast, coming abroad but little In 
the daytime, and often recognized only by its bird-like whistle 
heard at dusk on some quiet stream, or by the crunching of 
the swan-mussels which it brings to the bank to devour at 
leisure, the Zoo otter has renounced retirement, and its sportive 
gambols, conducted in the water with a marvellous agility and 
grace, may be watched in broad daylight. 
The marten, apart from its beauty of form and restless grace, 
is of much interest to English naturalists. Distributed throughout 
the wooded parts of England until about the middle of last 
century, the game-preserver wiped it out of existence almost 
before it was known to have become rare. In Scotland, in the 
English Lake District, and in some parts of Wales, it still 
maintains a precarious existence. One, probably the last of its 
race in Hertfordshire, was killed in Oxhey Woods in 1872. 
The buzzard and the peregrine falcon, both once common in 
England, are now extinct, except in a few favoured localities. 
In the Lake Country, Devon, and the remoter parts of Wales, 
buzzards may be seen flying in great circles, up and up until 
they are mere specks in the sky, whence can still be heard their 
curious mewing call. The peregrine is a bird of the coast-cliff 
rather than of the fells, and its eyries should be treasured as 
national possessions, for the sight of an angry falcon as she 
sweeps out over the sea or hangs above the invader of her 
sanctuary, yelling defiance in short angry barks, is not soon to 
be forgotten. 
Another bird which is rarely possible to see in a wild state in 
England now is the bittern. Stragglers come over from the 
Continent in the winter, to return if they escape the gun, but 
drainage of the marshes and waste places has banished the bird 
from its former breeding-haunts. The varying shades of brown 
in its plumage, and its habit of standing bolt upright with bill 
pointed vertically and feathers pressed closely to its body, make 
it extremely difficult to see the bird in the beds of withered 
weeds which it affects. 
In the Waders’ Aviary are many of our rarer and more local 
resident species, and others which only visit us at the time of 
migration. Here may be heard the monotonous song of the 
cirl-bunting and the “ tac, tac” of the ring-ousel, while the 
graceful form of an aweet and of a black-tailed godwit recall 
the bygone days when these birds, now banished for ever, bred 
