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Our Summer Migrants / An Account of the Migratory Birds Which Pass the Summer in the British Islands. cover

Our Summer Migrants / An Account of the Migratory Birds Which Pass the Summer in the British Islands.

Chapter 55: Transcriber’s Notes
By James Edmund Harting
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About This Book

A species-by-species account of birds that visit and breed in the British Isles during the summer, detailing arrival timing, migratory routes, preferred haunts, nesting habits, songs, and feeding. Drawing on field observation and anecdote and accompanied by Bewick illustrations, the text explains where the migrants come from, what they find to eat, and where they go in winter, while offering practical identification notes. Chapters of individual sketches are followed by general observations and a concluding discussion of migration, all intended to help country observers recognise and understand seasonal movements and behaviour of migratory birds.

CHISWICK PRESS:—PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS,
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.

Now ready; with Illustrations by Thos. Bewick. Demy
8vo., cloth gilt, price 10s. 6d.

THE NATURAL HISTORY
AND
ANTIQUITIES
OF
SELBORNE,
IN THE COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON.

BY THE REV. GILBERT WHITE, M.A.

THE STANDARD EDITION BY E. T. BENNETT.

Thoroughly revised, with additional Notes,

BY JAMES EDMUND HARTING, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

AUTHOR OF “A HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS,” “THE ORNITHOLOGY OF SHAKESPEARE,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS BY THOMAS BEWICK, HARVEY, AND OTHERS.

LONDON:
BICKERS AND SON, 1, LEICESTER SQUARE.
1875.

[Specimen Page.]

38 NATURAL HISTORY

in my outlet; but were frighted and persecuted by idle boys, who would never let them be at rest.[126]

THE HOOPOE.

Three gros-beaks (Loxia coccothraustes)[127] appeared some years ago in my fields, in the winter; one of which I shot: since that, now and then, one is occasionally seen in the same dead season.

[126]The hoopoe is an irregular spring and autumn visitant to this country. It has occasionally nested here, and would do so, no doubt, more frequently if unmolested. Colonel Montagu states, in his “Ornithological Dictionary,” that a pair of hoopoes began a nest in Hampshire, but being disturbed forsook it, and went elsewhere; and Dr. Latham, in the Supplement to his “General Synopsis,” has referred to a young Hoopoe in nestling plumage, which was shot in this country in May. A pair nested for several years in the grounds of Pennsylvania Castle, Portland (cf. Garland, “Naturalist,” 1852, p. 82), and according to Mr. Turner, of Sherborne, Dorsetshire, the nest has been taken on three or four occasions by the school-boys from pollard willows on the banks of the river at Lenthay. The birds were known to the boys as “hoops.” Mr. Jesse, in a note to this passage in his edition of the present work, states that a pair of hoopoes bred for many years in an old ash tree in the grounds of a lady in Sussex, near Chichester.—Ed.
[127]Coccothraustes vulgaris of modern systematists.

Transcriber’s Notes

  • Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.
  • Silently corrected a few palpable typos.
  • In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.