Gy SRD DE oe oo Ge yh nna ENR a OO NRINE ID RUNE TORTS NOME CMR TELEDYNE AGIA MEARNS REEL Tene - Pare THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE APLIN Londo HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AMEN CORNER, E.C. ALPINE GHOUGM: THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE BY O. V; APLIN MEMBER OF THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS’ UNION With a Map ‘Here are no stories told you of what is to be seen at the other end of the world, but of things at home, in your own Native Country, at your own doors, easily examinable with little travel, less cost, and very little hazard.’ CHILDREY, 1661. Orford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1889 [ All rights reserved | ‘While Quires of winged Songsters of the ‘The woods and groves with tuneful Roe a b&b i ‘ 7 Tee ‘ - neo - i : ~ . ° &, “het ps } os “. “4 i. / 5 - , A s : \ Taw. PREFACE. WITHIN the last thirty years a number of works treating of the ornithology of different districts in Great Britain have appeared. Not only do these afford to the resident of some particular locality trustworthy information about the birds of his own neighbourhood, but they also supply ornitho- logists generally with the means of comparing the avifauna of various districts, and of determining with some accuracy the distribution of the birds of these islands during the time which they spend within our shores. With the exception of Middlesex, Nottinghamshire, North- amptonshire, Herefordshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, and Buck- inghamshire, the counties thus treated of have been those possessing a considerable extent of seaboard, and no work upon the birds of Oxfordshire in a collected and accessible form has yet been written. To fill up this blank, in some measure at the least, by contributing to the series of county faunal works the re- quisite information relating to Oxfordshire, and to furnish the residents in the county with some idea of the buds around them, are the objects of the present volume. For some years past I have been engaged in collecting materials for an account of the Birds of Oxfordshire, and during that time, partly by personal observation, and partly al PREFACE. through the assistance of friends and correspondents who have paid attention to the birds of the county at various times, a considerable amount of information relating to the subject has been amassed. With the exception of occasional and casual observations made during visits to the other districts, my own personal investigations have been confined to the northern part of the county, where I have lived most of my life. In tracing therefore the history of our more common species, my re- marks, unless the contrary is expressed, must be understood to apply more particularly to that district, although probably true of the whole of the county. Correct as far as it goes it is believed that the present essay will be found to be, but complete I can hardly hope that it is. For it is highly probable that there are preserved in the county specimens of many of our more uncommon visitors, the existence of which there has been no opportu- nity of discovering, and of whose capture no record is now forthcoming, while a still larger number of rare birds have doubtless been procured at different times which were not preserved, and have been forgotten. A more exhaustive research into the zoological and antiquarian literature of this country than I have been able to make, might also reveal records bearing upon the subject; while from certain outlying corners of the county I have failed to obtain from resident observers as full information as I could wish. Any notes or observations upon the ornithology of Oxford- shire will always be gratefully received, and carefully pre- served ; meanwhile it is hoped that in its present form this volume may, in some measure at least, fulfil the objects for which it was commenced, and that the material here col- lected may prove serviceable as a basis for a fuller account of the birds of this inland county, should another edition be called for. PREFACE. Vil Further notes, supplementing those in the body of the work, upon the Marsh Warbler, Grey Wagtail, Cirl Bunting, Tree Sparrow, House Sparrow, Hawfinch, Lesser Redpole, Crossbill, Cuckoo, Wryneck, Turtle Dove, Woodcock, and Redshank will be found in the addenda. No system of classification has been introduced, it being deemed unnecessary in a work of this nature. In the sequence of species I have followed the arrangement in the fourth edition of Yarrell’s History of British Birds, which is perhaps more generally known among British Ornitholo- gists than any other work; and for the same reason I have also, without exception, adopted the generic and specific names used in that work. 0, Vo & BLoxHAM, Oxon. May 3rd, 1889. 4 INTRODUCTION. XFORDSHIRE is bounded on the north-west by War- wickshire, on the north-east by Northamptonshire, on the east by Buckinghamshire, on the south-east and south by Berkshire, and on the west by Berkshire, Gloucestershire, and part of Worcestershire. In shape it is very irregular, its length being about fifty- two miles, and its breadth varying from seven to twenty- seven miles. It is distant from the sea at Bristol, or rather Portishead, its nearest point, about thirty-five miles. It has an area of 483,621 acres, of which, according to the Agricultural Returns for 1883, about 417,500 are under cultivation, some 154,000 being permanent pasture, and the remainder under corn, green crops, and rotation grasses. In Capper’s Topographical Dictionary (1829) the area of the county is understated, and for this reason comparisons be- tween the then and present condition of the county are not easily made. But it is evident that while, even under the new survey, giving the larger area, the amount of wood and waste is stated as nearly 4000 acres less than at the earlier date, a very large extent of permanent pasture has been broken up within the last fifty or sixty years, the arable land being estimated in Capper’s work at about 100,000 acres less, and the pasture at nearly 80,000 more, than at the present time. It will be seen from this that the county generally is in a high state of cultivation. In the northern division we have a succession of small valleys. The streams flowing through each are bordered with meadows more or less liable to flood ; the slopes on either side are under pasture; the fields small rather than large, divided ? 2 INTRODUCTION. by tall thick hedges studded with an abundance of hedgerow timber, the elm being the most numerous tree, and a character- istic feature in the landscape. The intervening high grounds consist chiefly of arable land with small low hedges and less timber. Woods are nearly absent, but small spmneys are scattered freely over the district. It is a kind of country eminently adapted to the requirements of our smaller birds, the summer migrants finding shelter suitable to their retirmg habits in the thick hedges, and the Finches and Buntings having every facility for nesting im summer and a suffi- ciency of arable land to range over for food in winter. The tall hedges too produce an abundant crop of haws and other hedge fruits, attractive to the migratory Thrushes in autumn and winter; while the alluvial meadows present a vast area of feeding-ground to Wagtails, Pipits, Starlings, Rooks, Crows, etc., as well as some waders, in their partly- flooded condition, and to waterfowl when still more sub- merged. In the north-west the country is more open and undulating, with fewer valleys and long gently-rising slopes swelling to rounded hills—the outlying spurs of the Cotswolds. The land, except just in the valleys, is arable, with big stony fields and small hedges, the latter being often replaced by dry stone walls. Hedgerow timber, so abundant over many parts of the county, is scarce here, making the country cold and bleak in winter and extremely hot and dry in summer. Especially about Rollright, on the high ground where stands the well- known Druidical circle, the Rollrich Stones, it is peculiarly bleak. The beech, rare in the north, appears here on the lime- stone more commonly. There are, however, warm woods of oak, beech, spruce, and larch here and there—Bruern, Fyfield- Heath and Churchill-Heath Woods, as well as those about Sarsden. On the higher corn lands Larks are abundant, and the Corn Bunting finds a congenial home; the heathy edges of the woods are attractive to the Grasshopper Warbler, Whinchat, and Linnet, while in the more sheltered valleys there is no. lack of Warblers. INTRODUCTION, 3 From Fyfield, and the valley of the Evenlode at Shipton- under-W ychwood, to Burford in the valley of the Windrush, stretches a wide expanse of high ground, formerly grassy down, but now entirely under the plough. A bleak, monotonous tract, in which hedges and hedgerow timber are alike absent ; the stony fields are separated by grey stone walls, and the only trees present are a few isolated clumps which are land- marks for miles. Bird-life is scarce up here, the Lark bemg the most abundant species. Burford itself les in the sheltered valley of the rapid Windrush, where green meadows, hedges, and elms relieve the eye. North-eastwards, stretching with scattered woods to Ditch- ley, near Kiddington, and the great Park which Henry I en- closed at Woodstock, we have the remains of Wychwood Forest; but only about Leafield and Cornbury is there any large extent of woodland at the present day. South of the valley of the Windrush, between Burford and Witney (the river bending south-east after passing the latter place), the ground again rises, and is intersected with little valleys running south-eastward to the low ground along the upper reaches of the Isis. From Kelmscote, along the banks of the Isis past Bampton to Stanton Harcourt, the land is wet and low-lyimg, and comprises some of the most lonely reaches of the river. Previous to the time of the enclosures the area bordered by the river from Radcot Bridge to Newbridge contained some thousands of acres of unenclosed and undrained common land, a great part of which for some time in each year consisted of spongy morass intersected by backwaters of the river. Here was a paradise for the wildfowl-shooter. But an Enclosure Act was passed in 1848, and a Drainage Act in 1866, and the glories of wildfowling soon passed away. Yet when the Rev. J. W. B. Bell came to Aston in 1874 he found many relics of the old days in the cottages and farm houses; a curious wicker stalking-horse, under cover of which the ducks were approached, long antique duck-guns, some of which had been converted from flint-locks, and stuffed specimens of uncommon waterfowl. B 2 4 INTRODUCTION. Rich meadows, growing heavy and luxuriant crops of hay- erass, divided by tall, thick hedges, now take the place of open marsh ; but the country has still a character of its own. The scarcity of trees, save for rows of poplars, with here and there an ash, and the long lines of willows bordering many of the meadows, cannot fail to strike the observer coming down into this broad belt of flat meadow from the more varied scenery about Witney. Several streams converge about Tadpole Bridge, and wide, deep ditches, growing the beautiful Water Violet (Hotonia palustris), are not infrequent. The Sedge Warbler is naturally an abundant bird here, and the willow- and reed-grown banks of the Isis shelter many pairs of the scarcer Reed Warbler, while over the surface of the river the Sand Martins are constantly gliding and hovering. Peewits breed commonly in the rougher meadows in pasture, the erating call of the Corncrake sounds from the long grass, and Herons may generally be seen. This belt of flat alluvial meadow, although becoming narrower in extent and less marshy in character, is continued down the stream past Godstow, ‘ . . . through those wide fields of breezy grass Where black-wing’d swallows haunt the glittering Thames,’ to Oxford, widening out before reaching the city to form the large wet common known as Port Meadow. Oxford must have been the scene of the earlier observations of not a few of our British ornithologists, and many will be able to say with the late Mr, A. E. Knox, ‘ Again, as in by- gone days, are we wandering together on the swampy flats of Port Meadow, or exploring the sedgy banks of the Isis near Sandford Lasher, almost forgetting our hurriedly-moored skiffs im a prolonged search after the nest of the water-hen, or the airy fabric of the reed-warbler. Once more are we seated beneath the old rook-trees in Christ Church meadow, and congratulating the dusky proprietors of the village over- head that the fortunate settlement is within the protective influence of academic laws.’ (Ornithological Rambles im Sussex, pp. 1-2.) Oxford itself, with its quiet, shady gardens and smooth, INTRODUCTION, 5 grassy lawns, its old trees, rivers, meadows, and shrubberied ‘Parks, is attractive to many birds, Around her walls the scenery is very diversified, low-lymg meadows contrasting with higher corn lands and the elevations at Headington and Shotover Hill. The latter still retains much of its original character, one side presenting a rough and broken slope, clothed with bushes, gorse, and bracken. To the east and north-east of Oxford the country is wooded ; beyond, in the latter direction, lie ‘the deep plains of Otmore, often overflowed in winter’ (Camden). Otmoor proper, a great low-lying tract, through which meanders the sluggish river Ray, is represented on Bryant’s map of Oxon, made from a survey taken in 1823, as a wide stretch of com- mon land, crossed only by the remains of an ancient Roman road and the bridle track from Horton to Studely and Charl- ton. It was enclosed about the year 1837, and, though never properly drained, a system of large ditches has rendered it considerably drier than it formerly was. At the present day what is known as Otmoor consists of some two or three thousand acres, which (save in exceptionally dry seasons) are under water all winter, often also in summer, and are never very dry at any time (T. W. Falcon zm /it.). Large numbers of wildfowl used to resort here in winter, affording employ- ment to professional gunners, a few of whom still remain. Even nowadays Otmoor is annually visited by considerable quantities of fowl, which in some seasons are even abundant, and many ducks of various kinds, and other birds, are shot there, and sent up to Oxford market. At Boarstall, situated only about half a mile over the borders of the county, in Buckinghamshire, south-west of Piddington, there is an old-established decoy. The pond, about two acres in extent, is in the middle of a small wood, and is furnished with four pipes. When the Rev. B. D’O. Aplin visited the decoy he was informed that about three thousand ducks were taken in the season of 1882-3; they were chiefly Mallard and Teal, with a few Wigeon, Shoveller, and Pintail, All the fowl taken at Boarstall are doubtless drawn from the extensive feeding-ground of Otmoor, 6 INTRODUCTION. Southward of Oxford, broad alluvial meadows, rich in verdure in summer, and damp and liable to floods in winter, backed im places by wooded slopes, border the Isis as far as a little below the spot where it receives the waters of the Thame; here the Chiltern range begins to affect the country. In view of the recent Act restricting shooting on the river, it is to be hoped that the Coots, Moorhens, Dabchicks, Wild- ducks, ete., may again increase onthe Thames. Formerly they were decimated by the numerous ‘ pot-hunters’ who came up the river in boats, shooting at every bird they saw. Across the narrow part of the county, east of the Thame valley, and following the trend of it in a north-easterly direction, a belt of more or less flat land lies at the foot of the chalk-hills. The southern division includes, roughly speaking, that part of the county lying south-east of a line drawn from the Thames at North Stoke north-eastwards to Chinnor. In this district a narrow border of meadow lies in places between the river and the Chiltern range of chalk-hills, but generally the arable fields of the open wold slope gently down to the river’s banks; here and there the slope is steeper and wooded. The Chiltern Hills are partly open.sheep-down, dotted over with juniper bushes, on which here and there the plough has made inroads on the shallow soil, and partly covered with beech wood interspersed in parts with the oak and white beam, and with plantations of conifers ; here and there on the top of the hills are patches of rough, broken ground, partly clothed with ling, juniper, ete. Here the local Woodlark finds a home, and the soil is warm enough to encourage the Cirl Bunting; while the Dotterel has not yet ceased to visit some of the hills, and the Stone Curlew still breeds sparingly in at least one locality. The open chalk-downs, with their scattered juniper bushes are of course favourable to the Stonechat, Whinchat, and Wheatear. -Scattered over the county, here and there, are little iso- lated, and often decreasing, tracts of heathy land; remnants of the wide-stretching heaths once covering a considerable ~ portion of the county. Such exist at Cottisford, Hand- INTRODUCTION. 7 borough, Hanwell, Shotover, and various spots among the Chilterns. The few remaining acres of Wigginton, or Tadmarton Heath, may be taken as an example. Here the bracken, broom, and gorse flourish, and the ling still survives in patches; and here the Stonechat, Whinchat, and Grasshopper Warbler breeding annually, the abundant Lin- nets, and the Sand Martins with their tunnels bored in the soft, ferruginous sandstone in the face of the pits, give the place a character of its own. Inclosure and tillage are gradually breaking up the heaths, and they will soon become things of the past. Among the more interesting spots in the county, tia an ornithological point of view, is Clattercote Reservoir, a sheet of water some twenty acres in extent. Surrounded on three sides by thick hedgerows, and well furnished with rushes, flags, and other water-plants at the sides and upper end, it forms an attractive resort for ducks and other waterfowl. The following water-birds have reared their young there in recent years, viz. Wild-duck, Teal, Coot, Moorhen, Great Crested Grebe, and Little Grebe; the Kingfisher and Water Rail inhabit the pool but have not been detected breeding there, while the Peewit, Reed Bunting, Sedge and some other species of Warblers have their nests in the surrounding under- growth, or in the immediate vicinity. I have also observed the Reed Warbler, but it is scarce. At the close of summer the waterfowl with their young throng the water, and mingle with others which visit the pool at that season, especially if the water is low. An extract from my journal relating to the 3rd and 4th of August will give some idea of the bird life to be seen at that season. The water was very low, and, at the upper end, mud flats extended far beyond the reed-beds ; little streams trickled through the mud, and some deeper parts formed pools, while the growth of water-plants produced little wet islands. On the mud were nine or ten Herons, in every possible attitude. Three Green Sandpipers fed along the edge of the water, and at a little distance a couple of Common Sandpipers, while numbers of Moorhens, both adult and immature, were dotted about over the mud; 8 INTRODUCTION, every now and then one of the latter would take fright and scuttle into the reeds. The shallow water was occupied by numerous Coots of all ages, from the adults to the young not yet out of down; out in the deeper water were a few Wild- ducks and one or two Crested Grebes, and four small ducks, evidently Teal, rose from some part of the water and flew past, on a boy showing himself from one of the fields at the Claydon corner. This of course roused all the fowl, and sent the Herons off in a body; the latter, after flying round for some time, uttering loud croaks, perched on the tops of some neighbouring trees. A Kingfisher perched on the old wooden piles out in the water, and they were occupied later by a Sandpiper. 4th, 6.45 a.m.,a bright morning. Hight Herons feeding about the mud. One was wading in a pool of water -up to his body; bending forward, with neck drawn in and bent, he suddenly darted out his beak and secured a prey, which he bolted; this was repeated several times. A Green Sandpiper, which had been feeding along the mud edge, rose and circled round for some time, higher than the tops of the highest elms, calling loudly, ¢w/-a-wee-wee tul-a-wee-wee. I was able to make certain that the little ducks seen the day before yesterday were Teal. After I had watched them for awhile on the sheltered side of the water, now feeding along the edge, now resting in that very upright attitude affected by them, or taking short flights, they rose and flew across the corner of the pool, alighting, to the number of six in the ‘spring, in some wet oozy mud too thick for them to swim but too soft to support their feet, when they paddled about feeding and ‘guzzling’ in great contentment. The Grey Wagtail, Meadow Pipit, and occasionally the Snipe, the Tufted Duck, Pochard, and Golden Eye are autumn and winter visitors to the pool, together with Wild-ducks and Teal in increased numbers; various rare water-birds, and even wanderers from the coast, have also been observed or procured there from time to time. The large, flat, unenclosed meadow lying along the banks of the Isis north of Oxford, and known as Port Meadow, is noted © as the spot where a large proportion of the rarer wading and INTRODUCTION, 9 aquatic visitors mentioned in this work have been procured ; here in winter, when the meadow is wholly or partially flooded, as it very frequently is, numbers of wildfowl and other birds —Ducks, Teal, Herons, and Peewits, besides countless Rooks, Starlings, Fieldfares, and Redwings, are often to be seen; occasionally rarer visitors, such as Wild-geese, Curlews, and Gulls may be observed. Our water-meadows in the larger valleys often afford fine sights of wildfowl in winter. At the time of big floods the lower parts of the valleys form a series of shallow lakes, out of which peep patches of higher ground, the upper parts of the hedges, and the heads of the pollard willows. Teams of Duck and coils of Teal dot the water, or wing their way high over- head, great flocks of Peewits mingled with Crows, Rooks, clouds of Starlings, Fieldfares, and Redwings feed along the flood edge, where here and there the tall, grey form of the Heron may be seen. The Common and Jack Snipe too are found, and sometimes the Wigeon and Golden Plover. Oxfordshire can boast of more than forty Parks and park- hke grounds. Some fifteen of the former contain upwards of two hundred acres. By far the largest of these is Blenheim, comprising some 2700 acres, and not less than ten miles in circumference, which was enclosed by Henry I, and is said by Rouse, the historian, to have been the first walled park in Eng- land. Next in size comes Nuneham, 1200 acres, extending for some distance along the east bank of the Isis. Middleton Stoney comprises about 600 acres; Cornbury, adjoining Wych- wood Forest, some 500; while Ditchley, Heythrop, and Caversham are each not less than 300 acres in extent. Heavily and beautifully timbered for the most part, with rich green undulating lawns, little secluded spinneys, and frequent adjacent woods, these parks possess qualifications eminently adapted to meet the requirements of our woodland birds. The fine sheets of ornamental water also, present in some of them, are attractive to waterfowl, not only those species which breed here, but others which visit us during the winter months, Oxfordshire was in former times much more wooded than 10 INTRODUCTION. at the present day. Camden, describing the county, says, ‘ It is a fertile country; the lower parts are cultivated mto pleasant fields and meadows and the hills are covered with great store of woods.’ (Britannia.) But during the time of the Civil Wars most of the woods were destroyed except on the Chiltern Hills.. Plot, commenting in 1677 on the above passage of Camden’s, writes, ‘The Hills, ’tis true, before the late unhappy Wars, were well enough (as he says) beset with woods, where ’tis now so scarcy, that ’tis a common thing to sell it by weight, and not only at Oxford but at many places in the Northern parts of the shire. And thus it is every- where but in the Chiltern country, which remains to this day a woody tract.’ (Nat. Hist. Oxon, p. 51.) It is probable that over a large part of the county the woods thus destroyed were never renewed, although ornamental timber was planted to a considerable extent and hedgerow trees were encouraged. Wichwood, or Wychwood, was the most extensive stretch of woodland, and was an ancient Royal Forest. ‘Hard by, writes Camden in the latter part of the sixteenth century, ‘Wichwood Forest is of large extent, and yet the bounds of it were once much wider: For King Richard the third disforested a great part of Wichwood between Woodstock and Brightstow, which King Edward the fourth had taken into the limits of that Forest, as we are informed by John Rous of Warwick.’ (Gibson’s edition, p. 294.) That it once extended as far south as Bampton is shown by the old name for that place—Bampton-in-the-Bush. When the ‘Wichwood Disafforesting Act 18537 (16 and 17 Vict. cap. 36) was passed, the area of the Forest was stated im the preamble to the Act as 3735 acres. At the present day the chief woods are those which stretch in a great belt across Mid Oxon, comprising portions of the much diminished Wichwood, consisting chiefly of scattered woods extending to Ditchley on the north and Southleigh on the south, and reaching eastward to the plantations of Blenheim at Woodstock and thence south-east to Wood Eaton, Beckley, Forest Hill, and Waterperry. In the Chiltern district the hills’ along the whole range from Mapledurham to Crowel are capped INTRODUCTION. 11 here and there with wood, part perhaps of that great forest mentioned by Leland reaching from beside Portus Limenus in Kent one hundred and twenty miles westward, ‘which,’ writes Plot, ‘happily falls out to be about this place.? The woods at Nuneham are extensive, and the whole place is heavily timbered. Sloping upwards from one of the most beautiful reaches of the upper Thames, Nuneham in early summer, when its rich meadows are golden with buttercups and its trees clad in their freshest green, fairly teems with birds. Stock Doves in ex- ceptional numbers, together with Owls, Kestrels, Jackdaws, Starlings, Titmice, Nuthatches, Green Woodpeckers, and more rarely the Greater and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, share the holes and hollows in the old trees in the park. The open woods, rich in undergrowth, abound with Nightingales, Wood Wrens, and all our common woodland warblers, while the yews and other thick evergreens in the gardens and walks, and the beautiful wood of specimen conifers and rhododendrons known as the Pinetum, must be a paradise to the Titmice in winter, and tempt many a pair of the tiny Golden-crested Wrens to hang their nests beneath the extremities of the drooping branches. With these exceptions the woods in the county are few, scattered, and generally small, though Bruern, Fyfield- and Churchill-Heath Woods near Kingham are of considerable extent, as also is Worton Wood; and Wroxton, Sarsden, Broughton, Great Tew, and many other parks abound so in timber as to present a wooded appearance. The elevation of the county is varied, ranging from 120 to 800 feet. The Thames, where it leaves the county near Henley, is 120 feet above the sea, its level rising to 190 feet at Oxford, where it is joined by the Cherwell, and the latter stream attaming an elevation of 300 feet at Banbury. The valley at Kingham near Chipping Norton is not less than a hundred feet higher. In the north of the county, Wigginton Heath rises to a height of about 650 feet, and Epwell Hill to nearly another hundred feet. In West Oxon the high ridge of land on the Warwickshire borders, and the outlying spurs of the Cotswolds, have an elevation of nearly 800 feet. Shotover Hill varies the level about Oxford, rising to about 370 feet 12 INTRODUCTION. above the river there. In the south the lone range of chalk downs known as the Chiltern Hills, stretching for a distance of nearly sixteen miles, present some imposing heights, rising to nearly 700 feet at Nettlebed, and attaining an elevation of upwards of 800 feet near the Buckinghamshire borders at Beacon Hill. Oxfordshire is watered by one river, the Isis or Thames, and some score or so of streams of more or less importance, besides a number of minor streamlets, all of which, with two exceptions, empty themselves into the Thames. The Stour and Ouse take their rise in the county but leave it after a few miles’ course. Oxfordshire indeed has been said to be the best watered county in England. Plot writes, ‘though Oxfordshire almost in every part .... doth produce corn of all sorts plentifully enough ; yet it has much more cause to brag of its meadows, and abundance of pastures, wherein (as in rivers) few countrys may be compared, perhaps none preferr’d.’ The Isis touches Oxon at Kelmscote, and afterwards divides this county from Berkshire until at Remenham the left bank of the river passes into Bucks. The more important streams which it receives in its course are, successively, the Leach and the Windrush, rising in the Gloucestershire wolds, which, rapid, clear, and stony, differ from the rest of our streams with their muddy banks and bottoms and often sluggish current ; the Evenlode, with its tributaries the Glyme and Dorne ; the Cherwell, flowing from the extreme north of the county, and receiving in its course to Oxford numerous additions to swell its volume, among others the Sorbrook, the Swere, and the sluggish Ray, which meanders through Otmoor; and lastly the Thame, after which last junction it properly assumes the name of Thames. South and east of this no streams of any size exist in the county, the Chiltern district being badly supplied with water in all parts except m the immediate vicinity of the Thames. ‘And what sedged brooks are Thames’s tributaries.’ The amount of water brought down by the streams varies greatly with the seasons. In summer they are often very INTRODUCTION, 13 low, but never dry, and their banks allow for a considerable rise in the level of the water during winter floods. In long- continued wet weather, and when a heavy fall of rain or the rapid thawing of snow brings down a rush of water from the uplands, the meadows along most of our streams are liable to become flooded, often to a considerable extent and with great suddenness and rapidity. Ornamental water is present in several of the parks, but the only large sheet is the lake at Blenheim (250 acres). Clattercote Reservoir is about twenty acres, and Tusmore, Kirtlington, Sarsden, and several other parks are embellished with considerable pools. The climate of Oxfordshire is rather dry, and cold in winter, especially on the bleak, treeless uplands, which in summer are often extremely hot. An interesting account of the topography of the county, from a botanist’s point of view, with valuable details of the geology, drainage, and meteorology, will be found in the introduction to Mr. G. Claridge Druce’s very complete Mora of Oxfordshire. The ornithological literature of Oxfordshire, so far as I have been able to trace it, is not extensive, but dates back to the latter part of the seventeenth century. ‘ Oxfordshire,’ writes Camden in 1586, ‘abounds with all sorts of game both for hunting and hawking ;’ but when Childrey in 1661 brought out his ‘Britannia Baconica, or the Natural Rarities of England and Wales, in which work he appears to have collated all the published accounts of the natural history of each county, he dismissed Oxon in a few lines, making no mention of its zoology, and it is not until 1677 that the ornithology of the county seems to have received any atten- tion. In that year appeared The Natural Mistory of Oxford- shire, by Robert Plot, a folio work dedicated to Charles II. Chapter vii, in which the author treats ‘Of Brutes,’ contains a few notes upon birds, which will be quoted under the heads of the several species to which they refer. A second edition appeared in 1705. Dr. Plot was elected one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society in 1681, He was a friend of Pepys and 14 INTRODUCTION. Evelyn, and the latter tells us in his ‘ Diary,’ that, when at Oxford in 1675, he went to see ‘that rare collection of na- tural curiosities of Dr. Plot’s of Magdalen Hall, all of them collected in this Shire.’ The collection comprised, among other things, certain ‘ foules,’ but what these were Evelyn does not say ; probably the Cormorant, killed from St. Mary’s steeple, and the white Linnet, given to him by Mr. Lane of Dedding- ton, were included in the collection. In the account of Oxfordshire birds by the Revs. A. and H. Matthews, to be more fully mentioned below, the authors refer to ‘an old manuscript list of birds, collected by the late Dr. Lamb of Newbury, extending as far back as the latter part of the last century,’ which was lent for their perusal by Dr. Tomkins of Abingdon. Under the title of Oruzthologia Bercheria the list was, some years afterwards, printed in the Zoologist (1880, pp. 313-325), the Editor furnishing the follow- ing information relating to it:—‘ This list, it would seem, was originally intended for publication in the ‘Transactions of the Linnean Society,” and was forwarded for that purpose, about the year 1814, to Thomas Marsham, who was then Treasurer of that Society. For some reason, however, it never appeared, and the original MS., as we learn from the Assistant Secretary, was either lost or mislaid during the subsequent removal of the Society from the rooms formerly occupied in Soho Square. A copy, however, is in the possession of the Rev. W. Smith Tomkins of Weston-super-Mare, who has kindly placed it at the disposal of the Editor for publication in the Zoologist.’ This list refers to Oxfordshire, inasmuch as some of the birds recorded in it were procured on that part of the river Thames which divides this county from Berkshire, such occurrences belonging therefore with equal propriety to both counties, It is also interesting to compare the condition of the avifauna, at the beginning of the last century, of the neighbourmg parts of this border county, which would probably differ very little from that of the district treated of in = present volume at the same time. An account of the Vertebrate Animals of the district is- appended to the History of Banbury (1841), by Mr. Alfred INTRODUCTION. 15 Beesley. It is little more than a bare list of species, and includes 109 birds. The author acknowledges assistance from Mr. James Loftus, formerly of Banbury, Mr. M. Jessop and Mr. T. Abbott of Banbury, and Mr. J. Busby of North New- ington. In the Zoologist for 1849, and the following year, appeared a series of articles by the Revs. Andrew and Henry Matthews, entitled The Birds of Oxfordshire and its neighbour- hood. The list comprised 232 species, but of these nine must be excluded from the census of Oxon birds, as the examples upon which their title to inclusion rests were procured in the neighbouring parts of Berkshire or Buckinghamshire. The authors wrote from Weston-on-the-Green, in the Otmoor country, where they had been resident for many years, a dis- trict most favourable for observing the more uncommon wild- fowl which visit us in winter; the list is accordingly very rich in records of this group of birds. For this reason, and from the fact that the writers’ experience goes back to the time _ when the country was less carefully drained than it is now, and to the time when not only were the ordinary wildfow] far more numerous than at present, but when the Kite, the Buz- zard, the Raven, the Harriers, and the Bittern were not in- frequently met with, the Messrs. Matthews’ excellent account of our birds is of especial interest and value to the county faunist. In 1876 and 1877 Mr. C. M. Prior contributed to the Banbury Guardian a series of articles upon the ‘ Birds of North Oxon.” In 1882 was published.a pamphlet, entitled A list of the Birds of the Banbury District, written by the author in conjunction with his brothers; the list, which in- cluded 180 species, applied mainly to North Oxfordshire. In June, 1886, appeared A Year with the Birds, by an Oxford Tutor. A second and enlarged edition, in which the author, Mr. W. Warde Fowler, revealed his identity to the public, was issued before the year was out. This edition contains a list of the birds observed within a radius of four miles around Oxford during the three preceding years, including 104 species. The present writer is indebted to this work for much useful information relating to the birds in the neighbourhood of Oxford, and in the north-west of the county, contained in 16 INTRODUCTION, the chapters on the birds of an English city and a Midland village. Such are the only works treating of the ornithology of Oxfordshire especially, which I have been able to discover, but occasional notes (chiefly records of the occurrence of rare species) are scattered through, and have been culled from Merret’s Pinax Rerum Naturalium Britannicarum (1666), White’s Natural History of Selborne (1789), Daniel’s Rural Sports (1807), Pennant’s British Zoology (1812), Montagu’s Ornithological Dictionary (1802), and Supplement (1813), Yar- rell’s History of British Birds (4th edition), Harting’s Hand- book of British Birds, Morris’ History of British Birds, Knox’s Ornithological Rambles in Sussex, Clark-Kennedy’s Birds of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, A Catalogue of the Birds wm the British Museum, The Zoologist, The Ibis, Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History, The Annals and Magazine of Natural fMistory, ete. Besides these published sources of information, I have re- , ceived a large amount of assistance from numerous friends and correspondents, who have contributed valuable informa- tion in the readiest manner. Lord Lilford has kindly sent me a reprint of his communications to the Zoologist, which embody his notes on birds made during the time he was in residence at the University. Mr. W. Warde Fowler has contributed a list of the birds observed by him in the neigh- bourhood of Kingham, supplemented subsequently by much information by letter relating to that district and to Oxford. I am also greatly indebted to him for kindly perusmg my manuscript, and for the great assistance generally which he has rendered in the preparation of this work for the press. The Rev. H. A. Macpherson, and Mr. A. H. Macpherson, during their terms of residence at Oriel and Trinity, devoted much attention to the ornithology of the country round Oxford, the result of which was regularly reported to me ; they have also rendered much service by furnishing references to, and extracts from, the older publications, periodical and otherwise. To Mr. E. W. Harcourt I am indebted for notes: upon the birds breeding in or visiting Nuneham Park, and of INTRODUCTION, 17 the neighbourhood of Stanton Harcourt. The Rev. A, Matthews has obligingly answered numerous questions re- lating to the birds of the county previous to his leaving it in 1854, thus considerably augmenting his papers in the Zoologist. Mr. W. H. Warner, formerly of Standlake, has furnished me with considerable notes of the more uncommon birds occurring in that neighbourhood. Mr. T. Beesley has kindly lent for my perusal an annotated copy of the Listory of Banbury list, and also furnished extracts relating to rare birds found in the neighbourhood of Banbury, from his note-books, which extend back over a period of more than forty years. To Mr. G. Arnatt, of Stanton Harcourt, I am indebted for full particulars of the Oxfordshire specimens in his interest- ing collection, and for notes on the former abundance of some species now rarely met with. My brothers, Mr. F. C. Aplin and the Rev. B. D’Oyly Aplin, the former at Bodicote, and the latter during a two years’ residence at Chinnor in the Chiltern district, have made valuable notes on the ornithology of their own neighbourhoods, thus covering ground which I could not have under my own observation. Mr. J. E. Kelsall of Balliol College has obligingly looked up references in several works and periodicals in the British Museum. From Professor A. Newton, the Rev. H. Holbech, Mr. J, Whitaker, Mr. J. R. Earle, Mr. J. E. Harting, the Rev. Murray A. Mathew, Mr. Alfred H. Cocks, the Rev. J. W. B. Bell, Mr. E. Bidwell, Mr. W. Newton, jun., Mr. A. B. R. Battye, Mr, C, M. Prior, and numerous other correspondents I have re- ceived valuable notes. For the great assistance thus rendered, without which it would have been impossible for me to com- plete this work, my warmest thanks and acknowledgments are tendered. My thanks are also due to our county taxi- dermists, Mr. W. C. Darbey of Oxford, Mr. W. Wyatt of Banbury, Mr. Coombes of Chipping Norton, and Mr. Wells of Burford, to whom I am indebted for the opportunity of examining and recording the greater number of the rarer avian visitors which have been procured in the county during the past few years, Of all my correspondents, there were few whose letters were more interesting than those of the late C 18 INTRODUCTION. Rey. T. W. Falcon, Rector of Charlton-on-Otmoor ; he must have been possessed of rare powers of observation, and the cessation of our correspondence in 1882, consequent upon a severe illness from which he never fully recovered, was a great loss to this book. It is with regret (although he was per- sonally unknown to me) that I pen this tribute to the memory of an Oxfordshire field ornithologist, in the place of the acknowledgment of much information imparted which could not have been too warmly expressed. Oxfordshire, in the character of its ornithology, most nearly resembles the eastern side of southern England. Such species as have their head-quarters in south-east Britain, but are more or less uncommon in the north or west, e.g. the Hobby, Nightingale, Chiffchaff, Lesser Whitethroat, Tree Sparrow, Nuthatch, and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, are perhaps as abundant with us as in any part of the kingdom ; the Red-legged Partridge is well established and, in many parts of the county, numerous; we get too the north-eastern Brambling as a regular winter visitor, frequently in large flocks. We are, however, situated too far mland to participate, otherwise than sparingly, in the representatives of certain species which in winter may at times be said to swarm on the east coast, e.g. the Twite, Snow Bunting, Hooded Crow, and various waders. On the other hand, the south-western Cirl Bunting is decidedly scarce, while of some birds which are resident in, or regular summer visitors to, the west and north, the Grey Wagtail is with rare exceptions only a winter visitor, the Dipper is almost of accidental occurrence, and the Ring Ouzel, Pied Flycatcher, and Common Sandpiper are merely passing visitors of more or less uncommon occurrence. The changes in our avifauna which have taken place within the century may be briefly referred to. We have first to deplore the almost total disappearance of the Kite, Buzzard, Harrier, Raven, and Bittern, which at the commencement of that period were either resident in some numbers or frequent visitors, but are now only of more or less rare and occasional occurrence. It is possible that the Snipe, Red- INTRODUCTION. 19 shank, Black Tern, and some species of wild-ducks which are now only migrants or visitors, may have bred at one time on Otmoor before it was enclosed. The trips of Dotterel, once seen regularly on our hills and downs on their passage in spring and autumn, are now more rarely observed and much less widely diffused, and the Stone Curlew no longer rears its young on the stony fields on the hills about Sarsden and Chadlington, and has probably entirely ceased to breed in the county save in one locality in the extreme south. The Quail perhaps visits us less often, and in fewer numbers, than in former years—a fact observed in many parts of England. The Bearded Tit, which probably at no very distant time inhabited the reed-grown margins of the Isis, has entirely disappeared. The Nightingale, from some unknown cause, has within the last twenty or five-and-twenty years greatly decreased in the north of the county, and is now extremely scarce where formerly it used to be heard every year in some numbers. The Barn Owl holds its own, but with difficulty, in the face of the persecution to which it is subjected ; while the Goldfinch, which as a breeding species had a few years since become very scarce, has within the last four or five years (probably in part at least owing to the Wild Birds Protection Acts) been steadily increasing again, and at the present time is fairly numerous. The Red-legged Partridge, which was very rare fifty years ago, is steadily increasing and spreading, and is now generally distributed over most parts of the county. The Hawfinch is increasing, and may now be considered a permanent resident instead of a rather rare winter visitor only. The Woodpigeon or Ringdove has increased slightly of late, and the Starling and Sparrow to a considerable extent, especially the former. The increase of these two birds must in part at least be attributed to the destruction of their natural enemies the hawks, the Sparrow Hawk especially being much scarcer than it formerly was. There has been of late years a great diminution in the number of wildfowl visiting us in winter, consequent upon the more perfect drainage of the meadows, and of Otmoor. The wildfowl remaining to breed have become numerically C2 20 INTRODUCTION, stronger since the successive passing of the ‘ Wildfowl Preservation Act (1876)’ and the ‘Wild Birds Protection Acts 1880 and 1881,’ previous to which hardly any ducks were bred in the county except in the few places where they were closely preserved. It may be admissible to say a few words here upon the subject of game preserving, i.e. that branch of it which consists in destroying so-called winged vermin. Fortunately for the naturalist and the lover of country sights and sounds, this has not been carried to such a length in Oxfordshire as im some other counties. To a certain extent game preserving is practised in the county, chiefly in the parks and adjacent woods pertaining to some of our large residential properties, and also, in a lesser degree, in the surrounding country. Here not only every pair of hawks which attempt to rear their young are doomed to speedy destruction, but numbers of harmless species are also condemned. In such places the keeper’s motto is but too often ‘ All is vermin that is not game,’ the result of, perhaps excusable, ignorance of the true nature and habits of birds. It is no doubt almost too much to expect keepers to permit a hungry brood of young Sparrow Hawks to be reared in the vicinity of the Pheasant coops. Still one cannot help thinking that if the coops could, during the few weeks the broods are young, be watched by a boy in the daytime, it would be desirable to spare a few of these active little hawks for the purpose of preventing the undue increase of some of our smaller birds, which form their favourite prey; and also that they might, as they un- doubtedly would, kill down those Partridges which, deficient in strength and constitution, tend, if allowed to survive, to propagate a race of weakly birds. By all means let those inveterate egg-stealers, Crows, Magpies, and Rooks, be kept within bounds (not exterminated). The last-named are in dry seasons most destructive to eggs, and, little as the owner may suspect it, the vicinity of a large Rookery is probably far more inimical to the increase of Partridges than the presence of a few pairs of Sparrow Hawks. With the exception of those birds here named, the rest of our avifauna INTRODUCTION. 21 can plead exemption from the title of vermin. It has cer- tainly been proved that the mouse-eating Kestrel will occa- sionally carry off young Pheasants from the coops, but such is not their rule of life, and it is hard that the offences of a few individuals should seal the fate of all the members of a beneficial race. Caring little indeed, during the greater part of the year, even for small birds, these useful little hawks prefer mice to any other food, and their elegant forms and graceful evolutions, when beating over the fields in search of their favourite quarry, are one of the most pleasing sights of the country side. Yet how often does their variegated plumage grace the keeper’s gallows! Sad too it is to see the soft feathers of Owls fluttering in the air as they hang side by side with other so-called malefactors. It may safely be affirmed that no well-sustained charge of any but the rarest poaching can be brought against Owls. Flying by night, when young game-birds are, or ought to be, safely housed, how can they, if they would, carry off young Pheasants?