not remove above two or three yards." It was not until nearly a century afterwards that the suggestion was made by Marmaduke Tunstall that they were Pine Grosbeaks (Fox, l.c.), but certainly the account as left by the observer—a Mr. Roberts—points rather to the Crossbill, although no mention is made of the beak, beyond the statement that it was "more stubbed and larger than a Bullfinch's."[1]
9. The Pine Grosbeak is named in Hastings' 'Natural History of Worcestershire' (p. 65), in a list of birds which "are all of unfrequent occurrence." The Great Black Woodpecker is named also, but as no particulars are given of the occurrence of either of them, this record may be dismissed without further comment.
10. Following the order in Mr. Harting's list, where the records are arranged chronologically, we now go back to North Britain. In the list of species to be found in the parish of Eccles, in Berwickshire, copied verbatim for me by Mr. Gray, from the Statistical Account of the Parish, the Pine Grosbeak is thus noticed by Dr. R.D. Thomson, who Mr. Gray tells me was a member of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, and for a long time resident in Glasgow:—"Besides about eighty common birds, the parish is occasionally visited by some rarer species; of these may be mentioned the Columba turtur (Turtle Dove), Aquila albicilla (Sea Eagle), Corythus enucleator (Hawk-finch), Ardea nycticorax (Night Heron), Lanius excubitor (Greater Butcher-bird)." The English name of Hawk-finch would lead one to think that a mistake had been made.
11. In Mr. Pemberton Bartlett's "Notes on the Ornithology of Kent" (Zoologist, 1844, p. 621), the reader is informed that the Pine Grosbeak has been "occasionally killed" in the county. Mr. Bartlett's informant was Dr. Plomley, who possibly may have referred to a pair of Pine Grosbeaks in the late Mr. J. Chaffey's collection of Kentish birds, which were said to have been killed in England, but on whose authority is not known.
12. Next we come to the late Mr. Yarrell's specimen, which is now the property of Mr. Frederick Bond, in whose collection I dare say many of the readers of 'The Zoologist' have seen it.
- ↑ From the original account by Lhwyd (Phil. Trans, xxvii. pp. 464 and 466) it is plain that the birds could not have been Hawfinches, as might be supposed from the description of the bill. The cocks were of a deep scarlet colour; the hens gray, with a scarlet breast.—Ed.
