ORNITHOLOGICAL NOTES FROM SURREY.
By John A. Bucknill, M.A.
At the conclusion of my last contribution upon this subject to the pages of 'The Zoologist' (1901, pp. 247-254), I mentioned that I had received a large number of further valuable notes which I shortly hoped to publish; but, as they turned out to be of a most voluminous character, entailing a great amount of labour in their perusal and examination, I have, until now, been unable to present them in a connected or satisfactory form. The notes comprised the observations and the results of a very exhaustive research upon the Birds of Surrey, compiled by two gentlemen (Messrs. J.M. Mitchell and F. Styan), undertaken and begun about the year 1878, and continued for some years after that date, with the view of a subsequent publication in book form. Owing, however, to various causes arising from the necessities of business, and the permanent residence in China of the latter of these two gentlemen, their labours were never completed, and they have now, with great kindness, placed the whole of their notes at my complete disposal. When I add that these records fill the pages of some dozen or more large note-books; that the authors were well acquainted with some of the older county naturalists (Mr. W. Stafford, of Godalming, and Mr. Mansell, of Farnham, in particular); and that, besides having available to themselves sources to which, for reasons unavoidable (such as death or removal of informants), I had no access, they had left no stone unturned to discover and verify the many occurrences of the rarer visitors to the county which they had had brought to their notice in their work—it will be recognized at once that their contribution to a correct account of the avifauna of Surrey is of considerable importance. Two things strike one at once in perusing and classifying these notes: firstly, the number of records which ten years blot out from even the careful investigator; and, secondly, how very curiously my
