Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/228



In the foregoing list, almost the only bird which requires any particular notice is the nightingale. The banks of the Severn appear to be a favourite resort of this bird, and there is reason to suppose that their number has increased very much of late years in this district, while it is thought, by some naturalists, that they have decreased lower down the Severn. They very rarely proceed further up than Colebrook Dale, and are, I believe, never heard so high as Shrewsbury.

Since so much attention has been paid to the preservation of game, birds of prey have nearly been all destroyed. It is now an unusual thing to see either the kite, Falco Milvus, or the buzzard, Falco Buteo.

Ravens are likewise rare: in a nest which was built in this neighbourhood a few years since, one of the young birds was a perfect albino; it lived in a domestic state many years, and appeared to possess all the cunning of its kind. The king-fisher, Alcedo Ispida, frequently builds here. The common tale of the nest being built with bones is not true in every instance. I have, myself, seen the eggs laid in a hole in a sand bank, which, I conclude, was made either by a rat or a sand martin, and after the young ones were hatched, the sand at the bottom of the nest was found mixed with small bits of bones, the remains of fish which had been eaten either by the old or young birds; whether the bones are to be found before the eggs are hatched, I have had no opportunity of ascertaining. The increase of population, and the great attention which has been paid to the game preserves, has had a similar effect upon