Gy SRD DE oe oo Ge yh nna ENR a OO NRINE ID RUNE TORTS NOME CMR TELEDYNE AGIA MEARNS REEL Tene
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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
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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?
cloudy, with a light wind from north-east, I heard several
flying due north, constantly uttering their unmistakable seven-
times-repeated whistle, ‘ tee-tee-tee-tee’ ; again, on the 20th
August, about the same time, a calm cloudy night, I heard
them passing in a south-westerly direction. No instance of
the Whimbrel being shot here in autumn has come under my
notice.
—=——- =~
=
BLACK TERN. 165
THE BLACK TERN.
Hydrochelidon nigra.
Tue Black Tern is an occasional visitor to our rivers in
spring and early autumn, one or more occurring every year.
Adult birds in breeding dress generally appear in May, but in
one instance I have known an example shot near Banbury in
the last days of April, and Mr. C. E. Stubbs has recorded the
occurrence of another at Henley in June (Zoologist, ss, p. 2684).
In autumn it revisits us in August and September, young
birds, with mottled heads and white underparts, being natu-
rally more often met with then than the adults. Two
specimens in the immature dress, procured on Port Meadow,
are in the University Museum.
The followmg examples of the Black Tern have been
procured during the last five years: one, adult, on the Isis
near Kelmscott, May, 1884; one, immature, Wescot Barton,
21st August, 1884; one, immature, Banbury, 9th September,
1885; one, adult, Banbury, 30th April, 1886; one, adult,
Oxford, 7th May, 1886; one, adult female (of two seen),
Oxford, 30th May, 1887.
The Black Tern formerly nested in the English Fens, and
the Rev. Murray A. Mathew was informed that it bred on
Otmoor at the time he was in residence at the University, at
Merton (1855-60). He writes—‘I never took the Black Tern’s
nest myself on Otmoor, but was told by several (old Osman
among the number) that it was breeding there in my time’ (zz
Ht. 15th June, 1886). Osman was an old and well-known
Oxford bird-stuffer. Previous to his leaving the county in
1854, as he kindly informs me, the Rev. Andrew Matthews
had never heard of the Black Tern nesting in this locality, and
I have been unable to glean any further information respecting
it, but it is quite possible that it may have done so.
166 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
THE SANDWICH TERN.
Sterna cantiaca.
Tuer Sandwich Tern is a rare visitor. The Messrs. Mat-
thews mention, on the authority of Dr. Kirtland, that one was
shot near Oxford on the 24th August, 1847, and also that it
had been killed on Otmoor. The Hon. T. L. Powys (now
Lord Lilford) recorded the occurrence of three adult specimens,
which were shot on the Isis near Oxford, on the 23rd April,
1853 (Zoologist, p. 3946), and another found in a small bird-
stuffer’s shop in Clifton Hampden, near where it was said to
have been shot in 1879, was exhibited at a meeting of the
Oxfordshire Natural History Society, in November, 1882, by
the Rev. H. A. Macpherson.
THE ROSEATE TERN.
Sterna dougalli.
THE Roseate Tern is a rare visitor. Mr. Thomas Prater,
of Bicester, in a note dated 17th August, 1848, has recorded
that a fine specimen was shot on a large piece of water in
Tusmore Park, and was then in the hands of Mr. Osman, the
Oxford bird-stuffer (Zoologist, p. 2231), and Mr. T. Goatley
informed the Messrs. Matthews that this beautiful species
had twice been killed on the Isis, near Oxford (2., p. 2624).
THE COMMON TERN.
Sterna fluviatilis.
Tue Common Tern is a frequent visitor at the periods of
migration, at which times it is its habit te wander up rivers.
It is therefore naturally more frequently met with on the Isis
and Thames than in other parts of the county, yet it often
strays up the Cherwell valley to the extreme north. From
the latter end of April its visits may be looked for, and in
May small flocks even have sometimes been seen gracefully
playing in the air over the Thames, but it is not often
observed after that month, though instances of its occurrence
= ee ee |.
oe
LESSER TERN. 167
COMMON TERN
in early June are not unknown. Previous to its departure
from these shores in autumn it reaches us sometimes at the
end of August; and even as late as the second week in
October, in the exceptionally mild autumn of 1886, large
numbers visited Oxford (A. H. Macpherson).
THE ARCTIC TERN.
Sterna macrura.
Tue Arctic Tern is an occasional visitor, but of much less
common occurrence than the preceding species. In a few
instances it has wandered to the north of the county.
A curious, and indeed, as far as England is concerned,
unique, instance of this species breeding in an inland situa-
tion is recorded by the Messrs. Matthews. The nest, which
contained four eggs (an unusual number), was found on
Otmoor in the summer of 1834 (Zoologist, 2624). The Rev.
A. Matthews, in reply to my enquiries, writes—‘I did not see
the nest 7m situ, for I only heard of the occurrence after Mr.
Forrest had the birds and nest in his possession, but think he
eould be trusted ’ (7w Z¢.). Unusual, and even unlikely, as this
event may at first sight appear, it must be remembered that
the Arctic Tern is stated to breed on fresh-water lakes in
Northern Europe.
THE LESSER TERN.
Sterna minuta.
THE Lesser Tern is an occasional visitor to the Thames,
occurring in most years in April, May, or June, but I have
never heard of its appearance in autumn. In one instance
only has it wandered to the north of the county, namely, on
the 31st May, 1887, when one was shot on the canal near
Banbury; others occurred at Oxford about the same time.
In the west of the county a Lesser Tern was shot, on the 4th
May, 1888, at Little Milton, on a small tributary of the
Evenlode.
168 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE,
THE SOOTY TERN.
Sterna fuliginosa.
Tue Sooty Tern, an accidental visitor from the warmer
portions of the world, is of extremely rare occurrence. One
of the only two well-authenticated instances of its being
obtained in England is recorded by Mr. J. E. Harting, who
examined an example, in the flesh, which was shot, on the 21st
June, while flying over the Thames at Wallingford, Berks,
which here divides that county from Oxfordshire. It was
then in the possession of: Mr. Franklyn (vide Field, 26th
June, 1869).
THE BLACK-HEADED GULL.
Larus ridibundus.
THe Black-headed Gull is an imland breeding bird, and
resorts to the land for food in: winter. to a larger extent than
the other common species of Gull. Consequently it might be
expected to visit this county more frequently than any other
kind of Gull, but such is, however, hardly the case; neverthe-
less it is a pretty constant visitor at various times of the year.
Young birds in their first plumage have sometimes occurred.
In July, 1885, three or four in this stage were procured in
the northern division ; these in all probability had not been to
the sea, but had come to us from one of the Gulleries of Lin-
colnshire or Norfolk, by wandering along some river, which
they are fond of doing at that season. The Ouse, the Wel-
land, and the Nene, aided by canals, form waterways along
which Gulls could easily travel from those counties to North
Oxon. The Black-headed Gull also often occurs in its winter
dress, and in early spring, when perhaps driven inland by bad
weather on the coast, or when following the line of the pro-
bable migration of Gulls, to be more fully spoken of when
treating of the next species. During the cold, snowy weather
of March, 1888, a considerable number of Gulls visited several
parts of Oxfordshire, and, although only one specimen was
-
‘
4
BLACK-HEADED GULL—COMMON GULL. 169
procured, I have reason to believe that most of those observed
were of this species. They were seen on the 15th in the
Cherwell valley, above Banbury ; in large numbers in the
Evenlode valley, near Yarnton (W. W. Fowler); and flying
up the Windrush valley at Burford ; one was picked up dead
at Woodstock, and another was observed and identified at
Kingham on the 18th.
I am aware of but one instance of this species being shot in
Oxon after it has assumed the characteristic brown-black head
which distinguishes it in its summer dress; but four which ©
were shot, out of a flock of forty or fifty, in the Cherwell
valley, near Williamscote, on the 27th February, 1888, during
the severe weather and deep snow which prevailed that month,
were becoming dark about the head, and Mr. W. W. Fowler
observed one in the Evenlode meadows at Kingham on the
18th of the following March, which appeared to be consider-
ably advanced towards summer dress.
THE COMMON GULL.
Larus canus.
Tue Common Gull is a frequent visitor to the Thames dis-
trict between autumn and spring; more rarely in summer.
It also often occurs in the north, and some other parts of the
county. The dry north-west, where the valleys are smaller,
naturally has less attractions for it, and, though Gulls are
sometimes seen flying over, and this species has been killed on
the uplands above Fifield, they rarely seem to linger here.
In the wet weather of July, 1882, however, a pair of Common
Gulls stayed at least one whole day in the ‘ Yantle’ meadow
at Kingham, wading in the floods for food (W. W. Fowler,
MS.).
Although Gulls are usually considered in the light of sea-
birds, they are in the habit of resorting in numbers to the
land to feed, especially in bad weather; and I wish to point
out that the frequent visits paid to us by the present and allied
170 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
species are far from being accidental, or the result of the birds
having lost their way, or been storm-driven, as in the case of
Petrels and some other birds. Stress of weather to some
extent it doubtless is which brings them here, but they have
only wandered rather further than usual while following their
common practice of going inland for shelter and food, when
stormy weather makes it impossible to fish in, or to sit on, the
sea. Another reason for their presence with us must not be
overlooked. It has been surmised that the Gulls we see flying
overhead may be merely taking a short cut across a portion of
England, from the Wash to the Bristol Channel, or vice versd.
This cause seems the more probable from the fact that far
more Gulls are noticed in spring and autumn, when their mi-
grations would take place, than at other seasons. The flight
from the Wash to the Severn in autumn would be an extremely
likely movement, especially considering the prevalence of
south-westerly winds at that season, and the partiality of
Gulls for flymg against the wind, as shown by Mr, J. H.
Gurney, junr. (Zrans. Norfolk and Norwieh Nat. Society, vol.
iv, p. 326.) I have many notes of Gulls in flocks, and singly,
taking that direction in autumn, and the opposite course in
spring.
THE HERRING GULL.
Larus argentatus.
Tue Herring Gull is an occasional, and not at all uncommon,
visitor, generally in spring or autumn. It is seldom that
these Gulls alight, and they are usually seen passing over.
On the 2nd September, 1887, after a furious storm from the
south-west the previous night, a flock of Gulls was seen by a
friend of mine flying over Adderbury, against the south-west
wind, which was still high ; these had no doubt come from the
Wash, and their line of flight would take them to the Bristol
Channel. From the description given, they were probably of
this species, and a Herring Gull which was picked up some
HERRING GULL—GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL. 171
days after, having died from shot wounds, a few miles off in
Warwickshire, was doubtless one of the flock. I saw two
immature Gulls, apparently of this species, flying over
Bodicote in the same direction on the 7th September, 1884.
Mr, Prior mentions a Herring Gull shot at Swerford in 1876
(Banbury Guardian), and others also have been procured in the
north of the county. Mr. Fowler observed a Herring Gull
in a flooded meadow in the Evenlode valley, at Kingham, on
the 19th and 20th March, 1888,
THE LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL.
Larus fuscus.
THE Lesser Black-backed Gull is an occasional visitor,
perhaps rather less common than the preceding species; in
immature dress, however, they are very similar in appearance,
and it is impossible to say to which species the flocks of this
sized Gull (which are generally composed of individuals in this
plumage), seen flying over, really belong. In stormy weather
(wind north-east, backing to north-west) on the 12th May,
1886, a flock of Gulls passed over Oxford, progressing in a
northerly direction—an instance of the return journey over the
usual route, but a little to the south of the direct line. These
were probably Lesser Black-backed Gulls, as an example
of this species was shot the same day on Port Meadow. In
the same year two immature Gulls, of this size, were seen over
the Isis at Sandford on the 19th June (A. H. Macpherson
im lit.), a rather unusual time of the year for them to visit us.
Other specimens have been procured in the Cherwell valley,
near Banbury, and in the neighbourhood of Oxford.
THE GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL.
Larus marinus,
Tuer Great Black-backed Gull is an occasional visitor. The
Messrs. Matthews wrote of it as often passing over Weston-
on-the-Green in small flocks of four or five (Zoo/ogist, p. 2625),
172 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
but it is much less common than the other Gulls already
mentioned. An example, in immature dress, was shot by Mr.
George Jackson, then of Greenlands, near Henley, in that
neighbourhood, on the 31st December, 1849 (A. H. Cocks im
ft.), and a very fine adult specimen, captured at Stanton
Harcourt on the 12th August, 1882, is preserved in Mr.
Arnatt’s collection. I have examined but one of these
magnificent Gulls procured in the north of the county, an
immature bird, which was shot in the Cherwell valley, two or
three miles below Banbury, about the year 1866.
THE ICELAND GULL.
Larus leucopterus.
Tue Iceland Gull has occurred in Oxfordshire in one
instance, viz. in the spring of 1836, when a specimen, in the
plumage of the first year, was shot on Port Meadow. This
specimen was in the Messrs. Matthews’ collection. (Zoologist,
p. 2625.)
THE KITTIWAKE.
Rissa tridactyla.
Tue Kittiwake is an occasional, and not uncommon, visitor,
from autumn to spring, perhaps occurring in winter more often
than at other seasons. In spring I have known it shot here as
late as the 24th March,
THE POMATORHINE SKUA.
Stercorarius pomatorhinus.
Tue Pomatorhine Skua is an accidental wanderer from the
coast. The Messrs. Matthews record two specimens, in
immature dress, procured in the vicinity of Oxford; one in
February, 1834, the other in November, 1848. The first was
then in the collection of the late Mr. H. E. Strickland.
(Zoologist, p. 2625.)
ARCTIC SKUA—MANX SHEARWATER. 173
THE ARCTIC, OR RICHARDSON’S, SKUA.
Stercorarius crepidatus.
RicHARDSON’s SKvA, an accidental wanderer from the coast,
has occurred on several occasions. The Messrs. Matthews
record that immature birds had frequently been killed in the
neighbourhood, but they only knew of one instance of its
occurrence in full plumage. This happened on the 27th
June, 1837, when an adult bird, flying N.-E., passed over
their heads within gunshot of the ground. (Zoologist, p. 2625.)
A young one was shot near Chipping Norton on the 28th
September, 1841 (Annals and Magazine of Natural Mistory,
1842), and another on the Buckinghamshire borders, near
Waterperry, in September, 1853 (Zoologist, p. 4165). At
Milcombe, near Bloxham, a very fine adult bird was shot on
the 15th October, 1879 ; this was a straggler from the great
host of Skuas which arrived on our coasts during the memor-
able immigration of these birds, which took place that autumn.
THE FULMAR.
Fulmarus glacialis.
THe Fulmar has occurred, as a storm-driven wanderer,
twice in Oxfordshire. On the 20th February, 1839, a male
was found alive near Weston Wood, and taken to the Messrs.
Matthews, who had another in their possession which was
shot on Port Meadow, in May, 1836. (Zoologist, p. 2625.)
THE MANX SHEARWATER.
Puffinus anglorum.
Tue Manx Shearwater is an accidental visitor, storm-driven
from the coast. One was taken alive at Chipping Norton in
September, 1839 (Zooloyist, p. 2625); a second, at the same
place, in the winter of 1872-3 (id., 1878, p.135); a third at
Framington, in September, 1877 (id., 1878, p. 220); a fourth
at Wroxton (7., 1879, p. 457); a fifth at Stratton Audley, at
the end of August or beginning of September, 1885; and a
sixth at Cornwell in August, 1887 (W. W. F.).
174 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
THE FORK-TAILED PETREL.
Cymochorea leucorrhoa.
Tue Fork-tailed, or Leach’s, Petrel, has wandered to this
county on many occasions, being blown inland by storms.
The following instances are on record :—One found dead in
a turnip-field near Chipping Norton, 16th December, 1831
(Loudon’s Magazine of Natural History, 1832, p. 282). One
found dead, in February, 1838, at Weston-on-the-Green,
where others have been picked up in a similar condition ;
one shot at Henley in 1847 (Zoologist, p. 2625). One
found dead in Blenheim Park, in the winter of 1850-1,
preserved in the Ashmolean Museum (2d., p. 3118). One
at the same place, November, 1859 (24., p. 6780). One
picked up dead at Lower Heyford, early in December, 1881 ;
many of these birds visited the English coast about that time,
and this example was probably blown inland by the storm
which occurred at the end of November. As will be observed,
most of the Petrels procured here had perished from ex-
haustion.
A specimen procured at Standlake, some twenty years ago,
is preserved at Burford; and there was an example in the
collection of the late Mr. W. Phillips, of Salford, to which
the marginal note, Chipping Norton Common, 1858, in a
marked printed list of British Birds with the collection,
probably had reference.
THE STORM PETREL.
Procellaria pelagica.
Tue Storm Petrel is a wanderer, driven inland by bad
weather. Lewin, at the end of the last century, mentions
the occurrence of one at Oxford (Birds of Great Britain).
Two were shot, from a little party of five, at Eynsham, in
December, 1837, and another was procured at Chipping
Norton, in November, 1846 (Zoologist, 2625). The Rev,
STORM PETREL-—LITTLE AUK. 175
F, O. Morris mentions the occurrence of three near Chipping
Norton (History of British Birds, vol. viii), and examples have
been obtained in recent years at Headington, and on the Isis
above Oxford, where one flew into Bossom’s barge in bad
weather (H. A. Macpherson, MS.). The Storm Petrel has
also occurred in the north of the county, near Banbury.
THE RAZOR-BILIG.
Alca torda,
Tue Razor-bill is an accidental wanderer from the coast.
It has been procured on the Isis at Oxford in April, 1853 (Zoo-
— logist, p. 3946), on Clattercote Reservoir in December, 1878,
and at Nuneham (E. W. Harcourt, 1/3.).
THE COMMON GUILLEMOT.
Uria troile.
THE Common Guillemot is an accidental wanderer from the
coast. An example was shot on the Isis at Sandford in
October, 1840 (Zoologist, p. 2623), and another was caught on
a night-line set in the Cherwell, near Somerton, some years
ago,
THE LITTLE AUK.
Mergulus alle.
Tue Little Auk is an accidental wanderer from the coast,
generally after bad weather. The Messrs. Matthews record
that several examples have been caught alive, the last of them
being captured, im an exhausted condition, in Christ Church
Meadow, in November, 1845 (Zoologist, p. 2623). Another
was taken at Salford in December, 1847 (Morris, History of
British Birds, vol, vii), and Messrs. H. A. Macpherson and
J. R. Earle found in a local collection belonging to a rat-
catcher, at Clifton Hampden, a specimen of the Little Auk,
shot in 1872,
176 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
THE PUFFIN.
Fratercula arctica.
Tur Puffin is an accidental wanderer from the coast. One
was caught alive at Tackley, near Woodstock, on the 22nd
November, 1882, and sent to Mr. W. C. Darbey, of Oxford,
who informed me that it was apparently not much exhausted
by its flight. Another, described as a Little Auk, but, from
the description given, evidently of this species, was recorded
in the Leafield Parish Magazine, for January, 1883, to have
been picked up by the road side at Fairspear, about the end of
the same month. These two birds doubtless came inland to-
gether. An immature bird, with bill imperfectly developed,
was taken alive at Fencot in Otmoor on October 9, 1888, and
was bought in the Oxford market Rg Mr. — Lambert (W. W.
Fowler, J/S.).
THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER.
Colymbus glacialis.
Tue Great Northern Diver, a casual visitor, has occurred
in some half-dozen instances. The Messrs, Matthews record
an immature specimen found in a garden on Headington Hill,
Oxford, one morning after a remarkably stormy might in
October, 1824, which was kept alive at the Anatomy School
during six weeks, and afterwards preserved there, the parti-
culars of which were communicated to them by Dr. Kidd, the
Regius Professor of Anatomy; also one shot at King’s Weir,
Oxford, in 1845, and another on the Thames at Whitchurch
(Pangbourne), in 1794 (Zoologist, p. 2540). An example in
the University Museum is labelled ‘Cassington, 18287 and
another shot on the pond at Wroxton Abbey is preserved ~
there. An immature bird, in the possession of a fisherman at
Standlake, was shot on the Isis a few years before 1883 (W,
H. Warner, J/S.).
BLACK-THROATED DIVER—-GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 177
THE BLACK-THROATED DIVER.
Colymbus arcticus.
TxHE Black-throated Diver is a casual visitor of rare occur-
rence. Dr, Kirtland informed the Messrs. Matthews of one,
in immature plumage, shot near Cassington in the winter of
1828 (Zoologist, p. 2540), which, however, may have been the
Northern Diver preserved in the Museum; and an entry in
Mr. T. Beesley’s note-book, under the date 31st January,
1849, refers to another in the same dress shot on Clattercote |
Reservoir. A third was shot in January, 1877, on the Cher-
well, near Banbury, by a boatman named Hunt (C. M. Prior,
Zoologist, 1877).
THE RED-THROATED DIVER.
Colymbus septentrionalis.
Tue Red-throated Diver is a casual visitor. In the neigh-
bourhood of Weston-on-the-Green, according to the Messrs.
Matthews, it was occasionally found during the winter (Zoo/o-
gist, p. 2540). There is an example in the Museum, procured
at Sandford in 1828, and one was shot on the Thames below
Henley, on the gth February, 1848, by Mr. G. Jackson (A.
H. Cocks i tt.). The Red-throated Diver has also occurred
at Over Norton (W. Wyatt). The last occasion on which it
has been obtained was in March, 1888, when two were shot
at Oxford, one on the river near the railway station, and the
other near the mouth of the Cherwell ; the latter, which I saw
at Mr. Darbey’s, was an adult in winter dress.
THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE.
Podiceps cristatus.
Tuer Great Crested Grebe is a resident, from early spring
until late autumn, on Clattercote Reservoir, where two pairs
have bred for several years past. Even in the mildest seasons
they do not pass the winter there ; I have never seen them in
N
178 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
autumn later than the 18th November, and they have usually
departed before October is out. The return in spring depends
upon the state of the weather; in 1884 I observed a pair on
the 12th February, but in 1886 they were delayed by the
severe frost until the 28th March, the ice having broken up
only a week before.
The time of nesting consequently varies in different years ;
for instance, in the two years just named, young birds one-
third grown were on the water by the 19th June in the former,
while in the latter they were no further advanced nearly a
month later. In 1883 again, after severe weather in March,
the young were but newly hatched by the middle of July.
The Crested Grebe is said to lay four eggs, but I have
never known more than three young in a brood on Clattercote,
sometimes only two; neither has the Rev. H. Holbech seen
more than three there.
On the 15th July, 1883, I watched an old Grebe, in a thin
bed of rushes, carrying her young on her back, some portion
of her wings (the secondaries or tertials probably) being
slightly raised, forming a sort of cradle. Four days later
both old birds had the young out on the open water, evidently
giving them an early swimming lesson. When first noticed
the young birds were on the water between the old ones; one
of the latter presently, sinking itself low in the water, came
up under them, and so took them on to its back, then sinking
again, moved away sideways, and left them floating on the
surface ; this was repeated several times until, taking the
alarm, the old ones carried the brood off to the thick rushes.
The guttural note of the adults, often uttered when they are
alarmed, is monosyllabic, and very difficult to describe; in ‘ Yar-
rell’” it is called a croak. The young have a loud, shrill
piping cry, which they utter constantly when following their
parents for food. The Grebes (especially the hen bird when
she comes off the nest) often indulge in an exhaustive wash, -
dipping and shaking their heads beneath the surface of the
GREAT CRESTED GREBE. 179
water, and splashing with their wings and feet in evident
enjoyment. I have frequently seen them take wing, without
any apparent difficulty, and fly for a considerable distance, an
elevation of five or ten feet being occasionally, but rarely,
attained.
The adult birds on their appearance in spring are in full
nuptial plumage, with glossy blackish-brown crests, and rich
chestnut tipped ruffs. By the 26th September they were far
advanced towards winter dress, hardly a sign of the chestnut
showing, and by the 16th October the winter plumage was
fully assumed, the dark crests, retained at that season, con-
trasting with the plain white faces and greyer body tints than
those worn in summer. The young in down have the face
and neck streaked with longitudinal dark lines, which are
retained until they are full grown, disappearing gradually in
autumn,
On the 28th April, 1884, there were two Grebes on the
water, which had but very slight crests and no facial ruffs,
heads and backs dusky, neck and underparts of a less pure
white than in the adults; they did not remain here, and this
is the only occasion on which I have known immature birds
to appear in spring’, those that arrive to breed being invariably
in the adult stage of plumage, although the bright colours are
not always fully developed when their arrival takes place at an
early date.
About the end of July, 1888, four Great Crested Grebes
were said to have been killed among the rushes in the Cher-
well at Stone-bridge, about two miles above Banbury, by some
men who were mowing the hay-grass; the river is there
rather sluggish, and choked up with rushes. I examined one
of these birds, which: was an adult in full breeding dress, and
it seems probable that they were two breeding pairs whose
young escaped observation.
The Great Crested Grebe occasionally appears on the
Thames in winter, and the Messrs. Matthews write of it as
N 2
180 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE,
sometimes found in their neighbourhood. On the 7th March,
1886, a specimen, in nuptial dress, probably on its way to its
breeding haunts, was shot on the Isis at Sandford (A.
H, Macpherson); another was obtained close to Oxford in
March, 1888.
The Great Crested Grebe also breeds annually upon Worm-
leighton Reservoir, about two miles from Clattercote, and |
only just over the Warwickshire borders.
A note on the breeding and habits of this bird will be found
in the Midland Naturalist for 1882, p. 275.
THE RED-NECKED GREBE.,
Podiceps griseigena.
Tue Red-necked Grebe is an occasional winter visitor of
rare occurrence, wandering inland, in England, less frequently
than either of the two species next to be mentioned. In No-
vember, 1881, an example procured at Oxford was taken to
Mr. Darbey (H. A. Macpherson, J/S.), and Mr. Prior records
one shot on one of the canal feeders near Banbury (Banbury
Guardian). It is included in the History of Banbury list as
‘an occasional visitant, very rare,’ on the authority of Mr.
Abbott.
THE SCLAVONIAN GREBE.
Podiceps auritus.
Tue Sclavonian, or Dusky, Grebe is an occasional visitor.
The Messrs. Matthews record that several have been killed
near Oxford, in winter dress (Zoologist, p. 2623). Mr. Arnatt
has a specimen in this plumage which was shot on the Isis, at
Stanton-Harcourt, and another was procured on the Cherwell,
at Islip, in March, 1888.
EARED GREBE—LITTLE GREBE, 181
THE EARED GREBE.
Podiceps nigricollis.
THe Eared Grebe is an occasional visitor. The Messrs.
Matthews record that a specimen in full summer plumage was
shot on the Isis, near Sandford, in June, 1847, and that it has
also been procured in the winter months. The Rev. H. A.
Macpherson, in 1882, found an Eared Grebe in a local collec-
tion at Clifton Hampden. Mr. Prior records one of these
birds procured on the Cherwell in the north of the county.
(Banbury Guardian.)
THE LITTLE GREBE.
Podiceps fluviatilis.
Tue Little Grebe, or Dabchick, is a resident in some
numbers, breeding on most of the reedy ponds and larger
sheets of water which afford it sufficient cover, and in suitable
places along the Isis, and other rivers, where it is fond of
haunting the mouths of the back-brooks and larger overgrown
ditches. _
The powers of flight of the Little Grebe, said by some
authors to be limited, can be studied to advantage at Clatter-
cote Reservoir, where, not only in spring, but at other seasons,
these little divers may often be seen to rise from the water,
and fly for a considerable distance on rapidly-beating wings.
In the case of a shy bird like the present, opportunities
of observing it at close quarters are seldom enjoyed, and the
following note by the late Rev. T. W. Falcon will be read with
interest. ‘Water Rails and Dabchicks frequent our very
sluggish river Ray; I have often watched the latter feeding
her young. The latter swim about in shelter of thick flags,
and the mother dives after the fry, I think, of roach, and having
caught one, pokes no more than her head above water, gives
it to one of her brood, and slips under again silently ’ (2m Uit.).
182 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
THE COMMON CORMORANT.
Phalacrocorax carbo.
Tur Cormorant is a rare occasional wanderer from the coast,
long ago noticed by Plot, who writes,—‘ As for birds that have
casually flown hither, or come but at certain seasons of the
year, by naturalists stiled Aves migratoria, besides Swallows,
and some well known winter fowl; The Cormorant has been
observed to come hither about Harvest time, whereof there was
one killed from S¢. Marie’s steeple (tired with a long flight),
An. 1675, and another young one taken up in Arancot-field
fallen down in the corn, and brought me to Ozford.’ (Natural
History of Oxfordshire.) It has been remarked that when the
Cormorant and the Shag, the next species to be treated
of, come inland, they often settle upon elevated positions,
such as church towers, tall chimneys, and the like, situations
most resembling their native rocks; thus a correspondent of
the Held (23rd November, 1880), mentions a Cormorant seen,
during a snowstorm, sitting on the steeple of Wheatley
Church. Examples have been shot on the water in Kirtling-
ton Park, in December, 1845 (Zoologist, p. 2624); at Ridge’s
Weir, on the Isis above Newbridge, many years ago (Warner
MS8.); and on Clattercote Reservoir, on the 7th November,
1879.
THE SHAG, OR GREEN CORMORANT.
Phalacrocorax graculus.
Tue Shag is an accidental visitor from the coast, from
which it seldom wanders. One was shot on the Isis a few
years before 1849 (Zoologist, 2624), and another near Oxford,
which was afterwards presented to the Ashmolean Museum
(16. 3118). In December, 1880, a Shag was shot while sitting
on the ridge of a barn roof at Souldern.
3
c
ae UF a ee oe Se Ie
GANNET—HERON. 183
THE GANNETT.
Sula bassana.
Tue Gannet, or Solan Goose, is an accidental visitor from
the coast. An adult bird was seen passing over Weston-on-
the-Green, on the 14th October, 1838, and it is stated by the
Messrs. Matthews to have beeh met with also on other
oceasions. (Zoologist, p. 2624.) Mr. C. E. Ruck-Keene has
a Gannet, which was shot at Oxford in 1843. Mr. Beesley
has furnished me with the following extract from the Banbury
Guardian, entered in his note-book for the 25th February,
1845. ‘A flock of Gannets passed over the town—one found
next morning.’ I am informed that another, in the dark
immature plumage, was shot in the Cherwell meadows, near
_ Banbury, in 1877.
THE HERON.
Ardea cinerea.
Tue Heron is a resident, breeding in a few spots only. In
Tar Wood, the property of Mr. E. W. Harcourt, near Stanton
Harcourt, there is an old-established heronry. Mr. Harcourt
informs me that he has known it all his life, and that his
grandfather (who I believe was born about the year 1757)
told him that it had always existed. During Mr. Harcourt’s
own knowledge of Tar Wood the nests have varied from
thirty to sixty annually. When I visited the wood in April,
1888, I learned with regret that the Herons, which had been
much disturbed, and, notwithstanding Mr. Harcourt’s en-
deavours, had been considerably shot down at their feeding-
grounds, were not breeding that season, nor had they done so
for the last two years, although a few birds revisited the old
nests a day or two previously. The woodman told me that in
1881 or 1882 he counted as many as twenty-six occupied
nests, and it is confidently hoped that the Herons may return
to breed another year. The nests which I saw were placed in
the small branches of rather low oak trees, not more than
184 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
thirty or forty feet from the ground. There is a small
heronry, occupied at the present time, in some trees at Friar’s
Court, Clanfield (J. W. B. Bell zz “t.), while Herons have
been known to breed casually im other localities. Mr. H.
Gale informed Mr. Harcourt (in 1887) that, two years before,
a Heron’s nest was pointed out to him at Waterperry, and he
had been told that they nested at Rycote. In the autumn of
1886, I saw a Heron’s nest in one of a row of trees in the
meadows at the junction of the Sorbrook and the Cherwell,
near Adderbury, where one or two birds may generally be seen.
The tenant of the land said a pair of Herons built it just
before the meadows were mown, but, being disturbed by the
haymakers, they left it, returning when the fields were quiet
again. Ido not think any young were hatched, and as these
birds usually breed very early in the year (having eggs some-
times in the third week in February), the occurrence must be
considered abnormal, Most of the Herons so commonly seen
upon Port Meadow, Oxford, are drawn from the colony in the
Wytham Woods, on the Berkshire banks of the river, while
those seen about Henley have their home at Harleyford, about
four miles from the Oxfordshire borders, where they have
bred for many years in a clump of Scotch firs, (A. H. Cocks
im lit.)
The Heron is a pretty constant visitor to all our river val-
leys, being often seen in the north of the county, even in
summer, and especially at night at that season. In winter
they are always to be found in the Cherwell valley, often four
or five together, and on the 26th November, 1882, I saw as
many as eleven rise together from a flooded meadow at Nell
Bridge, near Adderbury.
THE PURPLE HERON.
Ardea purpurea.
Tue Purple Heron has occurred in three instances. Mr. T,.
Goatley informed the Messrs. Matthews of one shot some
PURPLE HERON—NIGHT HERON. 185
years previously, near Witney, and they mention another shot
on Otmoor in the winter of 1837 (Zoologist, p. 2600). The
latter example passed into the collection of the late Mr. E. H.
Rodd, of Penzance, and is now in the possession of Mr. W. H.
Vingoe, of that town, who had it in exchange from Mr, Rodd,
as it was not a Cornish specimen. It isin immature plumage
(W. H. Vingoe zm Ut.). Some five-and-twenty, or thirty
years ago, an adult Purple Heron, handled while in the flesh
by Mr. G. Arnatt, was shot on the Isis between Eynsham
Bridge and Bablock Hithe ; it was preserved, but afterwards
was destroyed by moth.
THE GREAT WHITE HERON.
Ardea alba.
Tuer Great White Heron, an accidental visitor from South-
ern Europe, Asia, and North Africa, has once visited this
county. Mr. Frederick Holme sent Mr, Yarrell the measure-
ments of a specimen which was shot on the Isis, not far from
Oxford, in September, 1833 (History of British Birds, 4th
edition, vol. iv), and the Messrs. Matthews also received notice
of the fact from the Rev. H. Roundell.
THE NIGHT HERON.
Nycticorax griseus.
Tue Night Heron is an occasional visitor of rare occurrence.
First recorded as a British bird by Latham, in his Sywopsis,
from a specimen procured near London in 1782, it was only a
few years later that a second example (in this case in the
spotted dress of the immature bird) was procured in Oxford-
shire, the particulars of which were communicated to the
Linnean Society, 3rd April, 1798. On the authority of this
specimen, Montagu included in the British list the ‘Gardenian
Heron, by which name the young of the Night Heron was
then known. It was shot by Lord Kirkwall, near Thame, as
it sat on a tree, to which it had retired probably after feeding
186 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
by the side of the adjacent river Thame. (Ornithological
Dictionary, 1802, and Supplement, 1813.) In 1833 a specimen
was shot near Wootton and passed into the Ashmolean
Museum; another, procured near Standlake in the spring
of 1835, formed part of the Messrs. Matthews’ collection
(Zoologist, p. 2600.) An adult bird, now preserved at a house
in Bampton, was shot there by its owner’s father many years
ago. (Rev. J. W. B. Bell z Uz.)
THE LITTLE BITTERN.
Ardetta minuta.
Tue Little Bittern is an occasional visitor. A female was
shot on Otmoor in 1827, another example on the Cherwell,
and a fine specimen near Bampton in 1847 (Zoologist, p. 2601).
On Otmoor a Little Bittern was shot by F. Goom, and
brought in the flesh to Smith, the bird-stuffer, in St. Clement’s,
Oxford, in 1872. After passing through several hands, it was
in 1882 in the possession of Mr. Pearce, of Blackfriars Road,
Oxford (H. A. Macpherson zz /it.). One in immature dress,
which was shot on the 27th October, 1867, on the Cherwell, a
little way below Banbury, is now preserved in that town, and
Mr. W. Newton, jun., informs me that another, procured at
Bensington some years ago, is in their collection (7 @t.).
On the Berkshire side of the Thames, at Wargrave, a
Little Bittern was knocked down with a punt pole, while
sleeping on the banks of a pond, on the 4th May, 1867.
(Zoologist, ss. p. 829.)
THE COMMON BITTERN.
Botaurus stellaris.
Tur Bittern was formerly a not uncommon bird in Oxford-
shire, resident probably on Otmoor and in the low swampy
country which at one time bordered the upper reaches of the
Isis. Writing, in 1849, the Messrs. Matthews remark,— In
the Bittern we have another instance of the gradual dis-
COMMON BITTERN—BLACK STORK, 187
appearance of a race once well known in this part of the
world.” They mention specimens procured at Fringford,
Stanton Harcourt, Otmoor, and Weston-on-the-Green, where
they themselves captured a second on the gth January, 1849,
a female being shot at Bletchington a few days after.
(Zoologist, p. 2600.) At the present day the Bittern is only
an occasional visitor during the winter months. The follow-
ing instances of its occurrence may also be enumerated. One
in the University Museum labelled Eynsham ; one at Clatter-
cote Reservoir, 17th December, 1847 (T. Beesley, MS.) ; one
at Cropredy; one on the Cherwell near Banbury, 1860
(W. Wyatt); one at Standlake, twenty years ago, now
preserved at Burford; one near Fencot, on Otmoor, 15th
December, 1878 (T. W. Falcon zm Uit.); one at Cote, near
Bampton, 17th January, 1879 (W. H. Warner, MS.) ; one at
Stadhampton, November, 1879 ; and one, a male, at Merton,
near Bicester, 3rd February, 1886 (A. H. Macpherson 7 l7/.).
A long and interesting note on the Bittern in Oxfordshire,
from the pen of the Rev. A. Matthews, will be found in the
Zoologist for 1881 (p. 462).
THE WHITE STORK.
Ciconia alba.
Tue White Stork is a casual visitor. In the spring of 1828
four were seen on Otmoor, one of which was killed and taken
to Mr. Forrest, of Oxford, for preservation ; the other three
escaped (Zoologist, p. 2601).
THE BLACK STORK.
Ciconia nigra.
THE Black Stork is an accidental visitor, On the 5th
August, 1865, a specimen in immature dress was shot by
F. Goom, a wildfowler, of Charlton-on-Otmoor, close to that
place, and is now in the possession of Mr. G. R. Castle, of
Bicester.
188 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
This example is recorded by Gould in his Birds of Great
Britain, where the date is mis-stated as November, 1862, and
by Mr. C. M. Prior in the Zoologist for 1877 (quoted in
Yarrell’s History of British Birds, 4th edition, vol. iv, p. 226),
where the locality is mis-spelt as Osmoor.
THE GLOSSY IBIS.
Plegadis falcinellus.
Tue Glossy Ibis is an accidental visitor. Dr. Lamb writes:
‘A male of this very rare bird was shot a few miles from
Reading in September, 1793, while flying over the Thames
in company with another, and were supposed to be Bitterns.
Having sent the description of the bird to our celebrated
naturalist, Mr. Sowerby, F.L.S., who has favoured the
world with it, accompanied with a coloured drawing, in his
British Miscellany, table xvii, p. 35, I must refer the
Society to that work.’ (Ornithologia Bercheria.) This bird,
then in the possession of Dr. Lamb, is stated by Montagu
to have been shot between Henley and Reading, and to have
been intermediate between the fully adult and transitional
stages of plumage, then known as the Bay and Glossy Ibises ;
the young bird being styled the Green Ibis. (Ornithological
Dictionary : Supplement.)
THE GREY LAG GOOSE.
Anser cinereus.
Tue Grey Lag is the true Wild Goose, formerly resident
in the English fens, where, however, it has ceased to breed
for the last hundred years. It is now a very rare visitor
to any part of Southern Britain, being less migratory in its
habits than some of its congeners.
Considerable mystery enshrouds the Grey Wild Geese
which visit Oxon from the fact that specimens are so
rarely shot. The Messrs. Matthews, when writing their acs .
count of our birds, took it for granted that this was the species
GREY LAG GOOSE—WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. 189
which was ‘always common in the winter months, and in
some years unusually abundant’ (Zoologist, p. 2622). In a
subsequent volume of the same periodical, in reply to a sug-
gestion of Mr. J. H. Gurney, they state that their note
upon Anser ferus seemed more properly to refer to the Pink-
footed. Goose (to be treated of presently). That the present
species occurred in Oxon in former days is highly probable,
but it must be confessed that the actual evidence of its
occurrence is extremely slender, The Rev. A. Matthews,
who is well acquainted with the appearance of the different
species of grey geese upon the wing, when writing to me in
1887, says that on one occasion he was near enough to fire
at ‘three very large Geese, with the unsatisfactory result
of obtaining a few body feathers; these birds I believe were
Grey Lags’ (7 Uit.).
THE WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE.
Anser albifrons.
Tue White-fronted Goose is a winter visitor, appearing
‘in small flocks, but is an uncertain visitor, and only found
im the severest seasons’ (Zoologist, p. 2538). The Rev, A.
Matthews has recently informed me that he has often seen
it brought into Oxford Market, and also, on the wing, large
flocks of this ‘ easily recognised’ species in the neighbourhood
of Weston-on-the-Green. It is now of much more un-
common occurrence; the enclosure of Otmoor, so attractive
to wildfowl in its open condition, doubtless causing a great
decrease in the number of all kinds of Wild Geese visiting
the county.
During a spell of severe weather in the early spring of
1888, a White-fronted Goose was shot from a flock of eight
or nine at North Aston Mill. It is a very small bird, ap-
proaching A. erythropus in some points. The bill from the
gape measures barely two inches; culmen (the ridge of which
forms a straight line with the forehead), one and thirteen-
190 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
sixteenths ; tarsus, two and seven-sixteenths of an inch. The
fact that the white on the forehead is broken, and does not
extend to the eye by a quarter of an inch, may be accounted
for by the bird not having assumed adult plumage, the breast
being marked with a few dark spots only.
THE BEAN GOOSE.
Anser segetum.
Tue Bean Goose is a winter visitor, but, from the Messrs.
Matthews’ observations, would appear to be less frequent
than the species next to be treated of, although from the
difficulty of distinguishing the two species on the wing it
cannot with certainty be determined to which the majority
of the Wild Geese occurring in the county belong. That
the Bean Goose has visited us is certain, from the fact that
the Rev. A. Matthews has often seen it brought into Oxford
Market, previous to his leaving Oxfordshire in 1854 (iu Uit.).
For the guidance of such as may be fortunate enough to
examine any local specimens of Wild Geese, it may be well to
state that in the Grey Lag and White-fronted Geese the
‘nail’ at the end of the beak is white, while in the Bean
and Pink-footed Geese it is black; the last named is dis-
tinguished from the Bean Goose by its short beak, and
characteristically coloured feet, which in the latter species
are orange.
A note in Mr. G. Jackson’s copy of Bewick relates to
a Bean Goose shot by him on the 24th January, 1850,
when living at Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames.
THE PINK-FOOTED GOOSE.
Anser brachyrhynchus.
Tuer Pink-footed Goose is a winter visitor, and it is believed
by many ornithologists that to this species belong the majority
of the flocks of Wild Geese which visit England in winter..
As previously stated, the Messrs. Matthews considered that
PINK-FOOTED GOOSE—BRENT GOOSE. 191
their note upon the Goose which was ‘always common during
the winter months, and in some years unusually abundant,’
referred more properly to the present species, which, they add,
“we have every reason to believe is the most abundant of the
two’ (Zoologist, p. 2736). The Rev. A. Matthews often saw
the Pink-footed Goose in Oxford Market previous to 1854.
With regard to the north of the county, Grey Geese of some
kind are occasional visitors to our water-meadows, and fields
of young corn, in the winter months, while at that season
a ‘skein’ of them passing high overhead is not a very
uncommon sight, their sonorous ‘honk, honk, honk, falling
gratefully on the ear of the sportsman-naturalist. I have
only once been able to examine a specimen killed in the
district, which proved to be a White-fronted Goose, although
on the 19th February, 1881, in the Sorbrook meadows, near
Adderbury, I unsuccessfully pursued a flock of sixteen for
some hours, without getting a shot, the whole ‘ gaggle’
rising in the first instance from a partly-flooded meadow,
at not more than a hundred and fifty paces distance.
THE BERNICLE GOOSE.
Bernicla leucopsis.
Tue Bernicle Goose is included by the Messrs. Matthews in
their list as an infrequent visitor, and Mr. C. E. Ruck-Keene, of
Swyncombe House, has a specimen which was shot at Henley.
This and the following species are known to gunners as
‘Black Geese,’ and are more attached to the coast than
the ‘Grey Geese’ before treated of, seldom wandering in-
land.
THE BRENT GOOSE.
Bernicla brenta.
Tue Brent Goose is also included by the Messrs. Matthews
as an infrequent visitor. Three were killed at one shot on the
Thames, near Henley, by Mr. George Jackson, who has one
preserved (A. H. Cocks zm “it.), and it has occurred so recently
192 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
as January, 1888, when a fine example of the dark-bellied race
was shot at Standlake, about the middle of the month, after a
week of thick foggy weather; it was taken to Mr. Darbey
for preservation, and while in his hands was examined in the
flesh by Mr. A. H. Macpherson.
THE CANADA GOOSE.
Bernicla canadensis.
Tue Canada Goose, a native of North America, has been
kept in a semi-domesticated condition in England for the last
two hundred years, and it is probable that all the numerous
examples procured in an apparently wild state are, at the most,
descendants of naturalized birds; but since Yarrell considered
it entitled to a place in his work (an opinion not, however,
shared by the editor of the last edition), there seems no reason
to exclude it entirely from the catalogue of Oxfordshire birds.
After all is said against the propriety of its inclusion among
the British avifauna, it must be allowed that it stands now on
a very similar footing to the Pheasant.
The several occurrences of this fine goose in Oxfordshire are
therefore here enumerated for what they are worth. In
February, 1838, a male was shot on Port Meadow, and in
the winter of 1845 another was killed on Otmoor (Zoologist,
p. 2538). There is a specimen in the University Museum,
labelled ‘Ishp, 1845,’ while another, shot many years ago, in
the Cherwell meadows below Banbury, is now preserved in
that town. With regard to the latest occurrence of Canada
Geese in Oxfordshire, there can be no doubt of their semi-
domesticated origin ; on this occasion, as he late Rev. T. W.
Falcon wrote me word, thirty-two appeared on Otmoor in the
severe frost of 1878-9. He writes,—‘ They were not truly wild,
and my unconscionable neighbours secured twenty-eight of
them. ‘The survivors are now wild enough.’ The heaviest of
these weighed fourteen pounds.
EGYPTIAN GOOSE—WHOOPER, 193
THE EGYPTIAN GOOSE.
Chenalopex aegyptiacus.
Tue Egyptian Goose is another species, the presence of
which in a truly wild state in Great Britain is open to
considerable doubt. As in the case of the Canada Goose,
the example set by Yarrell in including it is here followed.
Mr. Roundell gave the Messrs. Matthews information of one
shot on a large piece of water at Shelswell, as far back as
1822, and the same writers mentioned an example shot by the
Duke of Marlborough’s gamekeeper, on the lake at Blenheim,
in December, 1847. Two which were shot at Cowley, in the
middle of June, 1886, were taken to Mr. Darbey, who informs
me that he could find no marks of confinement on them,
nor could he hear of any being missing from ornamental water
about that time ; the season at which they were procured, how-
ever, almost precludes any opinion other than that they were
escaped birds, while other examples brought to him since then
exhibited unmistakable signs of captivity.
THE WHOOPER.
Cygnus musicus.
Tue Whooper, or Whistling Swan, is a rare winter visitor.
‘In the severe winter of 1837-8 great numbers of Wild Swans
visited this part of the kingdom. On the morning of the 6th
February a flock of fifteen made a descent upon the kitchen
garden of these premises [Weston-on-the-Green], evidently
with the intention of attacking a bed of cabbages, from which
the snow had been thawed. They did not however settle, but
continued to wheel round the spot for some minutes, until
a shot was fired which severely wounded one of them ;’
the wounded bird was captured at no great distance. (Mat-
thews, Zoologist, p. 2538.) In October, 1871, a young bird
of this species, shot on the Isis out. of a flock of ‘seven, was
shown to Mr. W. H. Warner at the Trout Inn, Tadpole, near
0)
194 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
Bampton. On the 21st February, 1864, four Wild Swans were
seen at Fawley, Bucks, flying westward over the Chiltern
Hills. (Bards of Berks and Bucks, p. 120.) Fawley is only
about half a mile over the county boundary, and the direc-
tion of the birds’ flight would take them into Oxfordshire in
a few minutes.
BEWICK’S SWAN.
Cygnus bewicki.
BrEwicx’s SwaN is also a winter visitor to England in severe
weather, but 1s rarer than the Whooper. In the winter of
1837-8, in which so many Wild Swans visited this county,
two examples of this species were shot near Oxford, (Zoo/o-
gst, p. 2539.)
THE MUTE SWAN.
Cygnus olor,
Tue Mute Swan is found in a semi-domesticated state
on the Thames and the larger sheets of water in the county, —
often wandering in winter along the streams to a distance
from their usual haunts. There is some reason to believe,
however, that really wild birds, migrants to our shores from
Eastern Europe, have occurred here. The Messrs. Matthews
wrote, ‘ several instances of the Mute Swan in an apparently
wild state, also occurred during that season [1837-8] ; these, it
is true, might have been tame birds, which had forsaken their
usual haunts, to join the wandering bands of their allies ; be
this as it may, in their habits they altogether differed from
the really tame swans, which often visit us in parties of three
and four during the spring.’ (Zoologist, p. 2539.) On the 3rd
February, 1884, I observed a Swan (identified as of this species,
with the aid of a glass) on Clattercote Reservoir, which had
every appearance of a truly wild bird ; it would not admit of
an approach, and, on my following it to the lower end of the
water, rose on the wing and flew away. The fact of this bird
flying of course proves nothing, as it is not unusual for
-.-
-<_ 7° “e
MUTE SWAN, . 195
the most domesticated Swans to do so, but the ease with which
this bird rose, together with its great shyness, and vigilant,
wary disposition, all pointed to its being a wild bird.
‘In England the Swan is said to be a bird royal, in which
no subject can have property when at large in a public river
or creek, except by grant from the crown. In creating this
privilege the crown grants a Swan-mark.’ (Yarrell.) The
same author gives a representation of the Swan-mark used by
the Corporation of the City of Oxford, taken from a rare
tract on Swans and Swan-marks, printed in 1632, and writes,
‘The city of Oxford has a game of Swans by prescription ;
and in the sixteenth century, when a state dinner was not
complete unless a Swan was included in the bill of fare, the
game of Swans was rented upon an engagement to deliver
yearly four fat Swans, and to leave six old ones at the end of
the term. By the Corporation books it also appears that in 1557
barley was provided for the young birds at fourteen pence a
bushell, and that tithes were then paid of Swans. (History of
British Birds, 4th edit., vol. iv.)
By the kind permission of the proprietors of the above work,
I am enabled to reproduce here the representation of the Cor-
+f
In a report made in 1854 by Mr. Hester, the then Town
Clerk of Oxford, the following entries occur. ‘The City had
anciently a Game of Swans, respecting which there are many
poration Swan-mark,
entries in the old books. The Swans seem to have been fed
during the winter, and to have had nests in Christ Church
Meadow and other places.... Messrs. Hall and Tawney’s
Brewery stands on an island called Swan’s nest, and within
living memory the proprietors of the brewery kept up the
O 2
196 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
breed of Swans.’ The Brewery is now known as the Swan
Brewery, and there is a public-house called ‘The Swan ’ close
by and verging on the river; there is also a small City pro-
perty named Swan Island. Mr. J. J. Bickerton, the present
Town Clerk, to whom I am indebted for these particulars,
kindly informs me that no customs are now kept up in connec-
nection with the Swans.
THE RUDDY SHELDRAKE.
Tadorna casarca.
Tuer Ruddy Sheldrake is a rare accidental visitor to England
from South-Eastern Europe, and North Africa. Mr. J. E.
Kelsall informs me that he saw, in a small bird-stuffer’s house
in Oxford, an example which was shot on Port Meadow on
the 3rd March, 1885.
THE SHELDRAKE.
Tadorna cornuta.
Tue Sheldrake is a rare visitor from the coast. The
Messrs. Matthews write,—‘We seldom pass through the
winter without a visit from this fine bird? (Zoologst,
p- 2539-) In the winter of 1880, it was stated, in a local
paper, that a Sheldrake was shot at Hook Norton, and a
male was procured on Port Meadow on the 24th January,
1885 (J. E. Kelsall in Uit.). |
THE MALLARD OR WILD DUCK.
Anas boscas.
Tue Wild Duck is a resident, breeding in some numbers
on the larger sheets of water, as, for instance, Clattercote
Reservoir and the lake at Blenheim, and sparingly along
all our rivers and streams, where the nest is often placed in
the head of an old pollard willow ; nor is it essential that the
stream should be of any size, for I once surprised a young
brood in the brook which runs between Great Bourton and
Hanwell, and is there not more than four or five feet wide,
MALLARD OR WILD-DUCK. 197
but thickly grown up with bur-reeds and flags. In May,
1879, 1 saw a Wild Duck fly from her nest in the fork of
a beech tree, in Blenheim Park, fully twelve feet from the
ground, the tree being at least a couple of yards from the
bank of the lake. Since the successive passing of the Wild-
fowl and Wild Birds Preservation Acts, which have gradually
become effective, the number of Wild Ducks breeding in the
county at large has considerably increased.
In winter large numbers of Wild Ducks often arrive in
the county, especially when the valleys are flooded; and
‘flighting,’ or shooting the ducks as they fly from the sheets
of water where they have passed the day, to their feeding-
grounds at night, may then be practised with some success,
The ducks leave the water where they have rested in security
during the day a little after sunset, and after much noisy
quacking wing their way to the feeding-grounds, returning
soon after it is light in the morning. Larly in the season
the fields where the barley is still uncarried, and the wheat
stubbles, are visited by the home-bred birds, and in winter,
after the arrival of the migrants, the smaller streams, and
especially the wet meadows, are resorted to, especially if
there should be large floods in some parts of the valley, at
which time thousands of ducks may sometimes be seen. On
the deeper floods the birds sit out on the water all day, secure
from all attacks, making their way at evening to feed on
those meadows which are only slightly covered with water.
These larger flocks are migrants from a distance, though not
necessarily from abroad. Insome winters, however, ducks are
killed which can readily be distinguished from our home-bred
birds. Slightly smaller and neater in appearance, the Mal-
lards are brighter in plumage, with the colours purer and
more clearly defined, the legs and feet almost vermilion
colour; the ducks are darker in colour, with more distinctly
spotted underparts. A drake of this kind, in fine condition,
will weigh two pounds ten ounces, and a duck half-a-pound
198 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
less. Yarrell gives the weight of a Mallard as up to three
pounds and a half, and many ducks will weigh two pounds
and a half. Although the difference between these smaller
ducks and our home-bred birds is slight upon comparison, it is
easily seen when the birds are freshly killed, and the former
are, I believe, well known to dealers as ‘ foreign fowl.’
On Otmoor wildfowl were formerly so abundant as to
enable certain men to gain their livelihood by shooting in
winter, and some such are still living in Charlton-on-Otmoor ;
but the winter shooting has greatly fallen off there, and the
same may be said of the Cherwell valley. In the latter case
this is due in a great measure to the better draimage of the
meadows, and to the cleaning out of the bed of the river,
which enables the water to get away more quickly, the floods
running off very rapidly in consequence.
On the 12th September, 1885, I saw a nearly white variety
of the Wild Duck on Clattercote Reservoir; his brilliant
yellow bill, seen through the glass, suggested a cross with
some domestic variety, or with the ‘call’? duck. When
shooting at Adderbury, near Nell Bridge, on the 4th Octo-
ber, 1884, we bagged a curious light buff variety, a duck,
which I described in the Zoologist (1885, p. 30). I have
on more than one occasion seen a precisely similar variety
among domesticated birds. |
THE GADWALL.
Anas strepera,
Tue Gadwall is a rare visitor. In January, 1833, the
Messrs. Matthews obtained a male, and in the following
winter a female, both of which were shot near Standlake,
and they stated that it had also been met with in other
parts of the county (Zoologist, p. 2539). Mr. C. E. Ruck-
Keene has a Gadwall which was shot at Henley-on-Thames
some years ago (én /it.).
SHOVELLER—PINTAIL DUCK. 199
THE SHOVELLER.
Spatula clypeata.
Tue Shoveller, which breeds in some parts of England, is
an occasional visitor to Oxfordshire, but there is no evidence -
of its having remained to nest in the county. The late Rev.
T. W. Falcon, however, believed that a pair, the male of
which was shot on Otmoor in the spring of 1880, intended to
breed there. He writes,—‘The man who shot the Shoveller
professes not to remember the date. He thinks it was in
March, or says so; I fancy it was later and in close time’ |
(in “it.). The same man shot a bird of the year in the same
place in the October following.
The Messrs. Matthews stated that a few specimens were
generally killed during the season (Zoologist, p. 2539). Upon
Otmoor, whence Mr. A. H. Macpherson received a drake shot
on the 12th November, 1886, the Shoveller is a well-known
winter visitor (T. W. Falcon iu it.); while on the upper Isis,
in the neighbourhood of Standlake, it occurs every winter
(Warner, M/S.). An adult male in the Oxford Museum is
labelled ‘Cassington.’ It is naturally of less common occur-
rence in the north of the county, but a female was shot on the
Cherwell, near Aynho station, in December, 1881, and I
observed an immature bird upon Clattercote Reservoir, on the
10th October, 1885.
The local name for the Shoveller on Otmoor is ‘ Spoonbill,’
and it is somewhat curious to remark that in the 16th and
17th centuries the true Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) was
known as the ‘ Shovellard’ (wide Stat. 25 Henry VIII, cap. 11,
and Zoologist, 1877, p. 428).
THE PINTAIL DUCK.
Dafila acuta.
Tue Pintail is a scarce winter visitor to Otmoor and
the Thames district. In the former locality, in recent years,
one was shot in November, 1880, another (one of three seen)
200 | THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE:
on the 14th February, 1881 (T. W. Falcon), also one or two
in November of the same year (H. A. Macpherson, 1/8.) ;
while in December, 1882, a male sent up thence was hanging in
. Oxford Market. Mr. W. H. Warner informs me that a male
was shot at Standlake, and there is a specimen in the Univer-
sity Museum labelled ‘Sandford’ As late as the 30th March
in 1850, a drake Pintail was shot near Henley, by Mr. G.
Jackson, of Greenlands (A. H. Cocks zm dit.).
THE TEAL.
Querquedula crecca.
Tue Teal is best known as a winter visitor, but of late
years it has remained to nest in two or three instances, and
there is little doubt that with the protection now afforded to
birds in the breeding-season it will be found to do so annually.
On the 27th April, 1874, the Otter hounds put up a male
Teal from the Cherwell near Heyford (A. H. Cocks im Ut.),
while in the same month in 1880, I found a pair in an osier-
bed at the pomt of junction of the Swere with the Cherwell.
I have also seen the Teal on the upper Isis, near Eynsham, in
April. In 1884, and the following year, young broods of
Teal came under my notice in the first week of August on
Clattercote Reservoir. Mr. Fowler has seen it in August at
Kingham.
The winter visitors generally arrive in October, considerable
numbers being sometimes seen on the flooded meadows, or
wheeling over the water; occasionally as many as twenty or
thirty in a ‘spring,’ or ‘coil,’ are seen, and I once counted
sixty together on Clattercote Reservoir, on the 24th October,
1885.
From their diminutive size, and habit of pitching down
suddenly from a height with great rapidity, Teal are seldom
shot at flight time, though they often splash down quite close
to the gunner, who one moment hears their short sharp whistle .
in the air above him, and the next the harsh grating quack
TEAL—WIGEON. . 201
which is uttered on the water. The sportsman’s best chance
with Teal is in hard weather, when, wandering along streams,
he sometimes comes upon a single bird in the still water
of some quiet bend, from which it springs with the quickness
and ease peculiar to these diminutive ducks.
THE GARGANEY.
Querquedula circia.
Tue Garganey is a visitor to this country on migration,
remaining to breed in Norfolk, and is occasionally found
in Oxfordshire. In August, 1830, three apparently young
birds alighted on some water on Otmoor, and were all killed
by a farmer, who took them to the Messrs. Matthews
immediately after (Zoologist, p. 2602). It is possible that
these were hatched in the locality. On the 7th November,
1885, I saw upon Clattercote Reservoir a duck which could
only have been of this species; it was swimming in company
with nine Teal, than which it was slightly but perceptibly
larger at first glance, colder and greyer in colour, with more
contrasted tints. Mr. Prior informs me that he has a
specimen which was shot near Banbury, while a remarkably
fine drake, preserved in that town, was procured in the
Cherwell meadows about 1877. The Messrs. Matthews stated
that it had been sometimes, but rarely, killed in their neigh-
bourhood in winter.
THE WIGEON.
Mareca penelope.
Tue Wigeon is a winter visitor, a few being procured every
year, but it is only in exceptional seasons that it arrives in any
numbers. On the 1st March, 1879, in very mild weather
following severe frosts in the winter, I saw great numbers of
Wigeon, together with other fowl, in the meadows at the
junction of the Sorbrook and Swere with the Cherwell, which
had been in a flooded condition for some weeks. The Wigeon
202 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE,
were in ‘companies’ of from a dozen up to fifty, and were a
pleasing sight as they wheeled about in the sun, the air being
full of the sound of their soft whistling cry. The latest date
in spring at which I have known the Wigeon to occur
in Oxon is the 7th April, on which date, in 1888, I saw
a fine drake on the Isis near Eynsham. From his unwilling-
ness to leave a particular part of the river, I think it possible
that it was a paired bird, and that the duck may have been
somewhere in the vicinity. Although, according to the editor
of the last edition of ‘ Yarrell,’? the Wigeon has never been
proved to have bred in any part of England or Wales,
it is believed to have done so in Norfolk and some other
localities.
THE POCHARD.
Fuligula ferina.
Tue Pochard is a winter visitor, arriving about the end of
October, often to be seen in some numbers on Clattercote
Reservoir, where I have on several occasions observed from
twenty to fifty on the water; on the 2nd January, 1886,
I counted no less than sixty-five there. To Mid-Oxon it is a
frequent winter visitor, and I have known it killed upon the
upper Isis. On the night of the 9th December, 1881, a fine
drake Pochard was captured in a very curious manner,
having dashed itself through the skylight of an outhouse in
Banbury, where it was found quite uninjured. A faint light
from a window near was shining on the skylight, which was
frosted over, and I imagine the bird mistook it for a patch of
water and pitched down on it.
THE FERRUGINOUS DUCK.
Fuligula nyroca.
THe White-eyed, or Ferruginous, Duck is a rare visitor
to this country in autumn and winter, and has occurred in.
three instances in Oxfordshire. Dr. Kirtland informed the
FERRUGINOUS DUCK—TUFTED DUCK. 203
Messrs. Matthews of a pair shot near Oxford in 1832 (Zoologist,
p- 2539), and a second pair were procured in the same locality
_ in the winter of 1844, of which Mr. W. Borrer furnished in-
formation to Mr. Yarrell (History of British Birds, 4th edition,
iv. p- 419). On the 3rd December, 1847, another was shot on
a fish pond at Cornwell, near Chipping Norton (G. Goatley).
This specimen, Mr. W. W. Fowler tells me, is still preserved
there,
THE SCAUP DUCK.
Fuligula marila.
THe Scaup is an occasional visitor, but being more attached
to the flat muddy shores and estuaries on the coast, is not often
found inland. The Messrs. Matthews, however, considered
that, at the time they wrote, it was one of our commonest
winter visitors, but, whatever may have been the case then, it
is certainly of far from common occurrence at the present day.
The same authors mention that on the 24th December, 1829,
a Scaup was caught in the basin in the quadrangle of Christ
Chureh College, where it had settled in company with
two others (Zoologist, p. 2539). Mr. A. H. Cocks has
a drake in his possession which was shot on the Thames
between Henley and Marlow, but outside the boundary of the
county (7 Jit.). In the north of the county the Scaup has
occurred in a single instance on the canal near Banbury
(W. Wyatt).
THE TUFTED DUCK.
Fuligula cristata.
Tue Tufted Duck is a regular, but not abundant, winter
visitor to suitable localities. As might be expected from its
extending breeding range, it has become more numerous with
us of late years; there is indeed no reason to doubt that in
the course of the next few years some individuals will even be
found breeding within the confines of the county. Ten years
ago a male shot on Clattercote Reservoir was considered a rare
204 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
bird, but at the present time it is a regular visitor to that
locality, arriving in October, and, if the water be unfrozen,
remaining during the winter ; parties of five or six may often
be seen, and on the 11th December, 1886, I counted as many
as a dozen in one bunch.
Here on the 28th March in the same year, a beautifully
mild spring morning, following the protracted frost which
lasted almost uninterruptedly from. the first week m January,
since which date the water had been ice-bound (bearing skaters
on the 13th March), and all fowl had been banished, I saw a
male and female Tufted Duck evidently paired, the male
in most perfect plumage, with well-developed crest and snowy
flanks. They swam quietly across the pool, the drake keeping
a couple of feet in the rear, with a proud appearance of
proprietorship, his almost constantly elevated head and neck,
and vigilant attitude, making him appear even larger by
contrast with his sombre mate, than was actually the case;
the latter swam with her head drawn back resting on her
shoulders, confiding her safety wholly to her protector. In
their appearance and manners in fact they entirely agreed
with the paired birds as I have seen them in their breeding-
haunts in Nottinghamshire, and I confidently hoped that they
might rear their young with us; but in this I was disappointed,
for they disappeared shortly after. |
To Mid-Oxon, and the Thames, the Tufted Duck is a
regular winter visitor, and it is often shot on Port Meadow.
THE GOLDEN-EYED DUCK.
Clangula giaucion.
Tue Golden Eye is a not uncommon winter visitor, females
and immature males largely predominating, the adult drakes
being rarely met with. On two occasions, however, in January,
1884, and December, 1886, I have observed drakes in fine.
plumage on Clattercote Reservoir; m each case they were
GOLDEN-EYED DUCK—COMMON SCOTER. 205
accompanied by two birds in the browner dress of the female
or young. The old male Golden Eye is a very conspicuous
duck ; on the second occasion here referred to, I first detected
the presence of the drake as he headed a bunch of seven
Tufted Ducks flying up the water, his superior size and pure
white neck marking him out from the rest at the first glance.
In the neighbourhood of Standlake, where the Golden Eye is
of frequent occurrence, it is known to the gunners as the ‘ Curr ”
or ‘ Kerr’ (Warner, J/S.).
THE LONG-TAILED DUCK.
Harelda glacialis.
Tue Long-tailed Duck is a northern species, which only
occasionally wanders as far as the southern shores of Great
Britain in severe winters. Mr. Thomas Goatley informed the
Messrs. Matthews that a young male was shot at Standlake
in the winter of 1840; and they mention, on the authority
of Dr. Kirtland, the occurrence of a second on the Isis, near
Iffley, in January, 1846 (Zoologist, p. 2539).
THE EIDER DUCK.
Somateria mollissima.
Tue Eider Duck as a straggler inland is extremely rare.
The example recorded by Dr. Lamb as ‘shot at Sunning, near
Reading, in a severe winter,’ was, no doubt, killed on the
Thames, which here forms the county boundary (Ornithologia
Bercheria).
THE COMMON SCOTER.
demia nigra.
THE Common, or Black, Scoter is an occasional visitor from
the coast, of uncommon occurrence. The Messrs. Matthews
wrote of it as frequently visiting us in winter, but it can now
only be considered as a casual visitor to Oxon. The only
206 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE,
recent occurrence of which I have had notice is that of a fine
old male, procured in the flesh by Mr. W. Warde Fowler, which
was stated to have been shot near Woodstock about the end
of January, 1888; it is now in Mr. A, H. Macpherson’s
collection. Dr. Lamb mentions a male and female shot on
the Thames, near Reading, in October, 1792 (Ornithologia
Bercheria). |
THE VELVET SCOTER,
Cdemia fusca.
Tue Velvet Scoter is an occasional visitor of rare occurrence.
The Messrs. Matthews state that they have seen specimens from
the neighbourhood of Oxford during severe winters (Zoologist,
P+ 2539).
THE GOOSANDER.
Mergus merganser.
As a winter visitor the Goosander is of occasional, and
irregular occurrence, several years often passing without its
being noticed, while in some winters it has been observed on
two or three occasions during the season. The male, in its
black and white adult plumage, has not, as far as I am aware,
been procured in the county, unless the example shot on the
Isis at Eynsham on the 5th January, 1871, and recorded as
adult, was a male (A. H. Smee, Zoologist, 1871) ; all the other
specimens procured, or observed, being in the plumage of
the female or young, in which stage there is an example (shot
at Rousham in 1837) in the University Museum.
The following occurrences of the Goosander in recent years
may be enumerated. A female at Islip, 14th November, 1881
(W. C. Darbey in Zit.). An adult female at Standlake, 6th
December, 1883 (W. H. Warner 7m /it.). One on the Isis
near Oxford, December, 1884 (Darbey). An immature bird
found dead near Hook Norton, January, 1887. A young male
at Bicester on the 11th of the same month. One, shot from .
a party of three, on the Cherwell at Marston, 26th February,
GOOSANDER—SMEW. 207
1887 (A. H. Macpherson in Ut.) In the north of the
county also an example was shot at Adderbury (W. Wyatt).
The Messrs. Matthews write that it was often to be met with
on our rivers during severe frost, but seldom visited us in milder
weather (Zoologist, p. 2540).
THE RED-BREASTED MERGANSER.
Mergus serrator.
Tuer Red-breasted Merganser is an occasional winter visitor,
but of less frequent occurrence than the preceding: species.
The Messrs. Matthews record one shot on Otmoor in February,
1838, and two near Cassington in the winter of 1841 (Zoologist,
p- 2540), while the Rev. H. A. Macpherson has seen several
immature birds which had been procured on the Isis in the
neighbourhood of Oxford. Mr. G. Jackson, when living at
Greenlands, near Henley, shot a female on the river there, on
the 23rd January, 1848 (A. H, Cocks zm Uit.). In the north
of the county a Red-breasted Merganser was shot in the
neighbourhood of Wardington, on the Northamptonshire
borders, in January, 1877 (C. M. Prior, Zoologist, 1877). The
two birds procured at Cassington are a male and female, and
are preserved in the Oxford Museum.
THE SMEW.
Mergus albellus.
THe Smew is an occasional winter visitor. The Messrs.
Matthews, writing of this species, say that ‘although many
females and young birds are annually killed in this county,
yet the old males seldom appear except in the severest seasons.
In January, 1838, three adult males were killed at one shot on
the Isis near Oxford’ (Zoologist, p. 2540). In the University
Museum are examples of the adult male, and of the young,
labelled ‘Hampton Gay,’ and ‘ Sandford,’ respectively. Mr,
W. Newton, jun., has one which was shot on the Thames at
Benson (in /it.).
208 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
Nowadays the visits of the Smew to Oxfordshire are of rare
occurrence, a remark which unfortunately applies to many of
the wading- and water-birds upon our list ; the only specimen
which has come under my notice of recent years is a female
which was purchased by the Rev. B. D’O. Aplin, in December,
1882, in Oxford market, where it had been sent up with other
wildfowl from Otmoor. |
ADDENDA.
Tree Sparrow (p.86). Ihave recently examined an albino
Tree Sparrow. The beak and legs are pinkish white, irides a
rather dark pk. At first sight the whole plumage appears
to be of a dirty white; but on closer examination, the chestnut
of the crown, as well as the markings of the throat, cheeks,
and upper parts, can be clearly traced in very faint shades of
dull chestnut on a pure white ground. It was one of a brood
of otherwise normal young taken from a hole in the wall of
a cattle hovel in this parish, three years ago, and since then
has lived in a cage in a cottage at Bodicote. Its owner was
under the impression that it was a House Sparrow, but by its
distinctive markings, as well as by its slender form, I was able
to identify it as of the rarer species. Albino varieties of the
Tree Sparrow are rare.
House Sparrow (p. 87). In some parishes it was formerly
the custom for the Churchwardens to pay head-money for
Sparrows, as well as for other vermin. The Bloxham Town
Charges book for 1818 contains the followimg entry :—
‘March 10¢#. Paid Churchwardens for go dozen of Sparrows
£1 28. 6d. A Sparrow Club, which existed in the parish
forty years ago, has been revived in the present spring, and
another was established in Mid-Oxon last year.
Cuckoo (p. 113). The Cuckoo seldom reaches North Oxon
before the last week in April. In twelve years, 1878 to 1889,
P
210 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
the average date of my own observation of it has been the 27th
or 28th. The earliest date is the 2oth, in 1883.
Toe Wryneck (p. 121). It is most unusual for the
Wryneck to breed in any situation other than a hole im a tree.
Early in June, 1884, Mr. Bartlett, of Banbury, visited the
colony of Sand Martins which have their burrows in the face of
a sand-pit on Tadmarton Heath. As he was about to put his
hand into one of the holes, a small brown bird flew out
very quickly and entered some bushes near at hand. At
the end of the burrow seven pure white eggs were found
in a slight nest of dry grass—probably an old nest of a
Sand Martin. Although Mr. Bartlett watched for a con-
siderable time he was unable to obtain another sight of the
bird. I saw some of the eggs a few days afterwards, and
told the finder I thought they must be a Wryneck’s. But as
the situation was so unusual, I forwarded one of the eggs with
an account of the incident to the Editor of the Zoologist, who
appended to my communication the note, ‘In shape and size
the egg sent certainly resembles that of a Wryneck’ (Zoologist,
1885, p. 27). Mr. A. G. Butler, when writing of five full-
fledged young of this species found by him in a hole in a
brick-earth cutting (i. 1887, p. 299), remarked that he had
‘never met with any recorded instance of the Wryneck breed-
ing in a hole in the ground.’ |
Woopcock (p. 151). Mr. Harcourt tells me that he con-
siders the average number of Woodcocks annually killed in
his Oxfordshire woods to be twelve. The mild winter of
1888-89 was a good season, and the number reached eighteen
(im Uit.). During the third week in January one of his
keepers shot two Woodecocks, right and left, each of which
weighed over a pound (Zoologist, 1889, p. 149). This was a
remarkable shot, for a Woodcock of twelve ounces is a good
bird, and Yarrell says that fifteen ounces is far above the
average. Mr. Harcourt adds, ‘I think the largest number I —
have ever received in one day was eight Woodcocks, shot in
ADDENDA. 211
Coges’ Coppice’ (2 Zt.). In an interesting note on the nest-
ing of the Woodcock, in the Zoologist (1880, p. 63), the Rev. A.
Matthews writes—‘ While we were residing in Oxfordshire,
now twenty-five years ago . . . few years passed by in which
a Woodcock’s nest was not discovered in one or another of the
great woods of Oxfordshire, and the adjacent counties.’
TurtLe Dove (p. 125). On the 11th May, 1889, I counted
thirteen Turtle Doves, males and females, in a field of young
barley between Bloxham and Barford, the only occasion
on which I ever met with any number of these birds to-
gether at that season. Doubtless they were new arrivals,
and the sudden return of dull, cold weather may have had
something to do with their flockmg. They were feeding
very eagerly, and when put up flew only a short distance
before settlmg again. A pretty effect was produced by
their broad, graduated, white-tipped tails when they all rose
on the wing. .
REDSHANK (p. 162). An example in full summer plumage
was shot on the Cherwell at Twyford Mill, a few miles below
Banbury, on the 4th May, 1889.
LusseR ReEppote (p. 94). Several pairs appear to be
breeding in the parks at Oxford this year (1889).
Grey Waerait (p. 76). A pair of these elegant birds have
at the present time (May, 1889) taken up their quarters at
the Mill on the Swere at Barford St. Michael, and evidently
from their behaviour have a nest in some secure place in the
stonework of the flood-gates. They are generally to be seen
running about over the large stones in the rushing waters
below the gates, or perched in the overhanging willows. The
hand-rail of the wooden foot-bridge further down the stream
is also a favourite resting-place.
Cirt Buntine (p. 83). Early in May, 1889, I saw a
male of this species close to the village of Bloxham. My
attention was first drawn to its presence by its sibilant song,
which I had heard previously only in the South of England.
P 2
212 THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.
The late Mr. Rodd gives a good description of the Cirl
Bunting’s song in the Birds of Cornwall (p. 53)—‘ Its most
usual song is like the trill of the Yellowhammer, but without
the prolonged note at the end; when concealed in the foliage
of trees its song is often more sibilous and rapid in delivery,
and at a distance sounds not unlike that of the Wood Wren
(P. sibilatriv) but stronger in expression.’
Marsh WarsLer (p. 61). Mr. Fowler communicates
the following note :—
‘On May 18, 1888, I noticed a Reed Warbler in a syringa-
bush just outside the Botanic Gardens, singing with such
extraordinary vigour and variety, that I stayed a long while
listening to it. The bird, which was to all appearance an
ordinary Reed Warbler, vanished in the course of the next
day. This year (1889), on the 8th of May, it re-appeared
in the same bush, and stayed some days. Its outpourings
of song were astonishing, and were kept up in spite of the
noise of constant passers-by, and of a national school which
is but a few yards from the bush. No Reed Warbler that
I have ever heard could vie with it for a moment, and it even
attracted the attention of the gardeners at work in the
Botanic Gardens. I stole quietly under the bush and watched
it twice for half-an-hour at a time. The flesh-colour of
its legs, and the habit it had of perching on a twig, erect
and vigorous, as well as the character of the song, suggested
to me the possibility of its being the Marsh Warbler (Acroce-
phalus palustris); but it disappeared after four or five days,
and it has not been possible to prove the fact. I hope to
make acquaintance with the song of the Marsh Warbler on the
continent this summer, and shall then be better able to judge.
W. Wee
[Harry Wooprrcker (D. villosus). In the Zoologist for
1882, p. 69, I recorded the supposed occurrence of this
American species between Hook Norton and Chipping Norton, -
about twelve years ago. It is very doubtful if the skin upon
ADDENDA. 213
which the record was founded was that of the identical
Woodpecker killed there. |
Hawrincn (p. 89). A pair of Hawfinches have reared
their young in some market gardens in Neithrop, Banbury,
this year (1889).
CrossBILL (p. 97). Mr. Fowler has recently obtained
satisfactory evidence of a pair of Crossbills breeding at Iffley
in 1888.
GLOSSARY OF LOCAL NAMES.
Billy = Hedge Sparrow.
Blackcap = Coal and Marsh Tit-
mouse.
Bottle-Tit = Long-tailed Titmouse.
Bumbarrel = Long-tailed Titmouse.
Buntlark = Corn Bunting.
Butcher-Bird = Red-backed Shrike.
Chat = Whinchat. ;
Corn Crake = Landrail.
Cuckoo’s mate = Wryneck.
Curr = Golden-eyed Duck.
Dabchick = Little Grebe.
Diver = Great crested Grebe.
Double Snipe = Great Snipe.
Dun Crow = Hooded Crow.
Featherbed = Willow Wren.
Felt = Fieldfare.
Fiery Red-tail = Redstart.
Firetail = Redstart.
French Magpie = Long-tailed Tit-
mouse.
Full Snipe = Common Snipe.
Gizer = Missel Thrush.
Gor Crow = Carrion Crow.
Half Snipe = Jack Snipe.
Haychat = Whitethroat.
Hickle = Green Woodpecker.
Hickle, Little = Barred Woodpecker.
Hickle, Pied = Spotted Woodpecker.
Horsematch = Red-backed Shrike.
Kerr = Golden-eyed Duck.
Molly Hern = Heron.
Mollyern = Heron.
Muffler = Great-crested Grebe.
Norman Gizer = Missel Thrush.
Norman = Missel Thrush.
Nettlecreeper = Whitethroat.
Owl, Marsh = Short-eared Owl.
Owl, Screech = Barn Owl.
Owl, White = Barn Owl.
Payfinch = Chaffinch.
Piefinch = Chaffinch.
Pigeon-Felt = Fieldfare.
Plover, Whistling = Golden Plover.
Reed Sparrow = Sedge Warbler.
Sea Swallow = Tern.
Spoonbill = Shoveller Duck.
Summer Snipe = Common Sandpiper.
Thresher = Song Thrush.
Titlark = Tree and Meadow Pipits.
Tomtit = Blue Titmouse.
Twit-me-dick = Quail.
Utick = Whinchat.
Wagtail, Land = Ray’s Wagtail.
Wagtail, Water = Pied Wagtail.
Whistler = Golden Plover.
Aberdevine
Accentor, Hedge
Auk, Little
Avocet
Bittern, Common
Bittern, Little .
Blackbird
Blackeap .
Brambling
Bullfinch . d
Bunting, Blackheaded
—,Cirl .
—, Common
—, Corn .
—, Reed .
—, Snow .
—, Yellow
Bustard, Great
—, Little
Buzzard, Common
—, Honey
—, Moor.
—, Rough- legged
Chaffinch
Chiffchaff
Chough, Alpine -
Coot :
Cormorant, Common
—, Green
Corn Crake
Crake, Corn
—, Little
—, Spotted
Crane, Common
Creeper, Tree .
Crossbill, Common, .
Crow, Carrion .
—, Gor
—,Grey .
—, Hooded
-—, Royston
Cuckoo ;
Curlew, Common
Curlew, Stone .
Dabchick
Daw
—+4——_
PAGE
94 | Dipper .
53 | Diver, Black- throated
175 | —, Great Northern .
149 as Red-throated
Dotiterel .
18, 186 | Dove, Ring
- 186 | —, Rock .
- $§1 | —, Stock
. 66 | —, Turtle :
a) 84 Duck, Common Sheld-
fo} =, Wider.
- 81 | —, Ferruginous
6, 83, 211 —, Golden-eye
. 2,82 | —, Long-tailed
82 | —, Pintail :
- 81 | —, Ruddy Sheld-
- 81 | —, Scaup
- 82 | —, Tufted ;
» %I4I | —, White-eyed
- 142 | —, Wild . .
18, 31 | Dunlin
ee
34 | Eagle, White-tailed
32 | Hider, Common
83 | Falcon, Gyr
68 | —, Iceland
. 100 | —, Peregrine .
7, 140 Fieldfare .
. 182 | Finch, Bramble
182 | Flycatcher, Pied
136 | —, Spotted
136 | Fulmar
138
137 | Gadwall .
141 | Gannet
. 70 | Garganey
97, 213 | Goatsucker ;
. I03 | Godwit, Bar-tailed .
103 | —, Black-tailed
105 | Golden-eye
105 | Goldfinch
: - 105 | Goosander
21, 113, 209 | Goose, Bean
, - 163 | —, Bernicle
. 6, 19, 142 | —,Brent
—, Canada
181 | —, Egyptian
106 | —, Grey Lag
7, 196
216 THE BIRDS OF
PAGE
Goose, Pink-footed . : . 190
—, White-fronted . A = i589
Grebe, Eared . F : 1) TSE
—, Great Crested . : 7s Mey
—, Little : : : 7, 181
—, Red-necked : . a TSO
—, Sclavonian . : : . “8
Greenfinch : : ; «7 492
Greenshank . : : - 162
Grouse, Black . z . «. 027
—, Sand . : . 125
Gull, Black-headed . ; « 168
—, Common . ; = FOG
—, Great Black- backed . ee
—, Herring. ; . 170
— , Iceland : : : re
—_, ’ Kittiwake : ; ey
—, Lesser Black- backed . -. WE
Guillemot, Common : : BUS
Harrier, Ash-coloured . i gis
—, Hen. : ; 3 18, 34
—, Marsh : ‘ : ay 34
—, Montagu’s . : ; 35
Hawfinch ; , 19, 89, 213
Hawk, Sparrow ‘ - 19, 28
Hedge Sparrow é ; Sane
Hemipode, Andalusian . ve
Heron, Common : 4,7, 8, 183
—, Great White. ; <7 £55
—, Night : A e - 185
—, Purple > : : - 184
Hobby. ; : ‘ ~<25
Hoopoe . : : : rte | Y
Ibis, Glossy . ; - - £88
Jackdaw . ; 3 : -, 106
Jay. ; : ‘ ‘ »» Fos
Kestrel . : : ; ) (28
Kingfisher : : ; 75. RIG
Kite 3 ; ° : 18, 29
Knot ; : : R =) Be
Lapwing . ; : : 4, 147
Lark ‘ : : ee ee
Linnet . : : . aes
Magpie . ; ‘ 2 an TOU
Mallard . : : : . 596
Martin, House : : <4 TKO
_ Sand . 4, III
Merganser, Red-breasted - | 267
Merlin . : ; sy) OY
Moor-Hen ‘ : « “yer se
Nightingale . ; . TT ,8Q, 54
Nightjar . ‘ ; ~~ “Sere
Nuthatch , : 2 _ 9O
OXFORDSHIRE.
Oriole, Golden .
Osprey.
Ouzel, Ring
—, Water
Owl, Barn
—, Brown
—, Eagle
—, Long-eared
—, Short-eared
—, Tawny
Oyster-catcher .
Partridge, Common .
—, Red-legged
Pastor, Rose-coloured
Peewit . ‘
Petrel, Fork- tailed .
—, Storm ,
Phalarope, Grey
—, Red-necked
Pheasant .
Pie: . 3 :
Pigeon, Wood .
Pipit, Meadow
—, Richard’s
—, Tree . ‘
Plover, Golden
—, Green
—, Grey .
—, Kentish
—, Norfolk
—, Ringed
Pochard .
Puffin
Quail, Common
Rail, Land aes
—, Water
Raven. -
Razor-bill
Redbreast
Redpole, Lesser
Redshank, Common .
—, Spotted
Redstart .
—, Black .
Redwing .
Reeve
Reedling .
Roller
Rook
Ruff
Sanderling
Sand Grouse ;
Sandpiper, Common.
—, Curlew
—, Green
—, Purple
19, 129
4, 147
4, 147
162, 211
0 ee a
i
|
i ia cat ith is i
Sandpiper, Wood
Scaup
Scoter, Common
—, Velvet
Shag
Shearwater, Manx 2
Sheld-duck
Sheldrake F
Sheldrake, Ruddy
Shoveller .
Shrike, Great Grey
—, Pallas’ :
—, Red-backed
—, Woodchat .
Siskin ‘
Skua, Arctic
—, Pomatorhine
—, Richardson’s
Skylark
Smew
Snipe, Common
—, Great.
—, ae ack .
Sparrow-Hawk
Sparrow, Hedge
—, House
—, Tree .
Starling :
—, Rose- coloured
Stilt, Black-winged
Stint, Little
—, Temminck’s
Stonechat
Stone-Curlew .
Stork, Black
—, White
Swallow . 7
Swan, Bewick’s
_, Whistling .
—, Whooper
Swift ;
Swift, Alpine .
Teal. |
Tern, Arctic
—, Black.
—, Common
—, Lesser
—, Roseate
—, Sandwich
18,
> 8,
19;
INDEX.
53
166
217
PAGE
Tern, Sooty 168
Thicknee . : 142
Thrush, Mistletoe 47
—, Song : : 48
Titmouse, Bearded . 19, 72
—, Blue . fe
—, Coal . 71
—, Great . 71
—_, Long-tailed 72
—, Marsh 72
Tree-creeper 70
Turnstone 148
Twite 95
Wagtail, Sa 76; 211
—, Pied . ey 4.
—, Ray’s . 77
—, White 76
—, Yellow. re
Warbler, Dartford 64
—, Garden 65
—, Grasshopper - 62
—, Marsh 61,212
—, Reed. 4, 60
—, Sedge 4, 62
Water-hen 139
Waxwing. rie
Wheatear 59
Whimbrel 164
Whinchat ; 58
Whitethroat, Greater 64
— Lesser 65
Whooper . 193
Wigeon : 201
Willow-Wren . 67
Woodcock DEI, 210
Woodchat 43
Woodlark ; . 6, 80
a Greater r Spotted 118
—, Green 4 117
—, Hairy 212
—, Lesser Spotted : 120
—, Pied : 118
Wood- Wren II, 66
Wren 70
—, Fire- crested 69
—, Golden-crested 69
—, Willow 67
—, Wood 66
Wryneck . E21, 210
Yellow-Hammer 82
THE END.
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