ence I have been able to collect in each case; and where
evidence of the occurrence was altogether wanting, I have thought it
better to omit all mention of the bird, though its occasional occurrence
may seem possible.

I have confined myself in this list to the Birds of Guernsey and the
neighbouring islands--Sark, Alderney, Jethou and Herm; in fact to the
islands included in the Bailiwick of Guernsey. I have done this as I
have had no opportunity of personally studying the birds of Jersey, only
having been in that island once some years ago, and then only for a
short time, and not because I think a notice of the birds of Jersey
would have been devoid of interest, though whether it would have added
many to my list maybe doubtful. Professor Ansted's list, included in his
large and very interesting work on the Channel Islands, is hitherto the
only attempt at a regular list of the Birds of the Channel Islands; but
as he, though great as a geologist, is no ornithologist, he was obliged
to rely in a great measure on information received from others, and this
apparently was not always very reliable, and he does not appear to have
taken much trouble to sift the evidence given to him. Professor Ansted
himself states that his list is necessarily imperfect, as he received
little or no information from some of the Islands; in fact, Guernsey and
Sark appear to be the only two from which much information had been
received. This is to be regretted, as it has made the notice of the
distribution of the various birds through the Islands, which he has
denoted by the letters _a, e, i, o, u_[1] appended to the name of each
bird, necessarily faulty. The ornithological notes, however, supplied by
Mr. Gallienne are of considerable interest, and are generally pretty
reliable. It is rather remarkable, however, that Professor Ansted has
not always paid attention to these notes in marking the distribution of
the birds through the various Islands.

No doubt many of the birds included in Professor Ansted's list were
included merely on the authority of specimens in the museum of the
Mechanics' Institute, which at one time was a pretty good one; and had
sufficient care been taken to label the various specimens correctly as
to place and date, especially distinguishing local specimens from
foreign ones, of which there were a good many, would have been a very
interesting and useful local museum; as it is, the interest of this
museum is considerably dete