AMONG THE
BIRDS IN NORTHERN SHIRES

(M618)

Bird-haunted Handa.

AMONG THE BIRDS
IN
NORTHERN SHIRES

BY

CHARLES DIXON

Author of “Rural Bird-life” “The Game Birds and Wild Fowl of the British Islands” “British Sea Birds” “Curiosities of Bird-life” “The Migration of Birds” “The Migration of British Birds” “Bird-life in a Southern County” &c

WITH COLOURED FRONTISPIECE AND FORTY OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES WHYMPER

BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND DUBLIN
1900

PREFACE.

The present volume must be regarded more as a popular introduction to the bird-life of our northern shires than in any way as an exhaustive faunal treatise, although at the same time we believe almost every indigenous species has been included. For twenty years we lived surrounded by these northern birds, so that we may fairly claim to have served our ornithological apprenticeship amongst them. With the birds of South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire we are specially familiar; whilst repeated visits not only to the Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and Northumbrian littoral, but farther afield into Lancashire, and various parts of the Lowlands and the Highlands of Scotland, have enabled us to acquire much personal information relating to the avifauna of many a northern shire.

The difference between the avifaunæ of the northern and southern shires is strongly marked in many respects. Their study makes a record of avine comparisons of the most intense interest. The important effects produced by latitude and climate upon the bird-life of these widely separated areas make material for fascinating investigation, and have been fully dwelt upon as opportunities were presented. This variation in avine phenomena is not only far too often entirely ignored, but is apt to lead the student of bird-lore astray; due allowance has to be made in many cases for this difference in latitude, and all that it involves. The present volume, then, to a great extent a study of ornithological comparisons, will, we trust, be of some service to the bird lover or the bird student in his task of making allowances.

Unquestionably these northern shires from an ornithological point of view are much more interesting than the southern, and especially the south-western counties. Their avifauna is richer, and presents far greater variety, notably during the breeding season; whilst the marvellous phenomenon of Migration there unfolds itself each season in a manner that is never remarked elsewhere.

CHARLES DIXON.

Paignton, S. Devon.

CONTENTS.

[viii]
[ix]

ILLUSTRATIONS.