1881 by Selby (Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Newcastle, i. p. 265)
as having been shot at Bill Quay near Newcastle-on-Tyne,
and at that time in the possession of Mr. Anthony Clapham,
but now the property of Mr. Backhouse. Thirdly is a male
example which the Editor is informed by Mr. Byne is in his
collection, and that he believes it to have been killed near
Exeter in the winter of 1854—5 and brought to his late father
by whom it was preserved. In the next rank to these—the
onlypresumably British-killed specimens known to exist, come
two which were said in 1845, by Lubbock (Faun. Norf. p.
36), to have been obtained near Great Yarmouth and to have
been then in a collection in that town. It appears, from the
investigations of Mr. Stevenson and others, that they belonged
to the late Mr. Miller and that, at the sale of his collection in
1853, they were lost sight of. To these two examples are
probably referable the statements of Messrs. Gurney and
Fisher (Zool. p. 1313) as to a pair of Pine-Grosbeaks supposed
to have been killed near Bungay, and another pair at
Kaveningham in Norfolk—the notices of which may be fairly
taken to concern the same individuals, but the story of their
having a nest must be dismissed as in the highest degree
unlikely. Then there is the case of an adult cock-bird said
(Zool. p. 1025) to have been shot near Rochdale in February
1845, which was in the late Mr. Hamlet Clark’s collection when
it was seen by Mr. Bond, and no doubt can exist as to the
specific determination of the specimen. Since the dispersal,
however, of this collection its fate is unknown.
For one reason or other little if any trust can be placed in the
remaining records of the appearance of this species in Britain.*
* There are more than, half-a-dozen instances in which it has professedly been
seen in Great Britain, but nothing which can be ^called an act of identification
has followed the observation. They are :—(1) A flock of about a hundred unknown
birds that came to a hemp-yard in Pembrokeshire in Sept. 1694 as
reported by a Mr. Roberts to Lhwyd (Phil. Trans, xxvii. pp. 464, 466) who
suspected they were “ Virginia Nightingals ” (Oardinalis virginianus) but later
writers suggested that they were Pine-Grosbeaks ; (2) The birds seen Aug. 5th,
1769, by Pennant (Tour in Scotl. Ed. 5, i. p. 132) at Tnvercauld in Aberdeenshire
; (3) A great number which, with Crossbills, for two years past had, according
to Don’s information in 1813 (Headrick’s ‘ Gen. View Agricult. Angus’
p. 43), done much damage to the woods of Glammis and Lindertis in Forfarshire ;
It is more than likely that in one case the birds seen were only
common Bullfinches, in others that the Crossbill has been
mistaken for the Pine-Grosbeak, while in others again that it
has been confounded with the Hawfinch, and the result of a
diligent but impartial investigation of the evidence on which
are based the claims of the present species to be accounted
“ British ” shews that it can only be considered a very occasional,
and perhaps not always a voluntary, visitor; for, since
the days of Edwards, it has been not uncommonly brought
(4) A flight said by tbe Messrs. Paget (Nat. Hist. Yarm. p. 6) to have been seen
on Yarmouth Denes in Nov. 1822 ; (5) One seen near Petworth in Sussex, by a
Mr. Mellersh, a few years before 1849, as mentioned by Mr. Knox (Orn. Rambl.
Ed. 3, p. 211) ; (6) One supposed to have been observed Aug. 20th, 1850, in
Corriemulzie, Braemar, hy Macgillivray (N. H. Dee Side, p. 403) ; (7) One
believed to have been seen by Col. DrumiPond-Hay (Harting * Handb. Br. B.’ p.
114) at Dunk eld ; and (8) Two seen, Nov. 8th, 1868, feeding on the seeds of an
arbor-vitse at St. Germain’s in Cornwall, as Mr. Gatcombe informed Mr. J. H..
Gurney, jun. (Zool. 1877, p. 248).
We then have a class of cases wherein specimens are alleged to have been
killed in the British Islands, but about which doubt may be reasonably entertained.
Of these are (1) One, recorded at third hand by Thompson (N. H.
Irel. Birds, i. pp. 275, 276) and recognized from a very indifferent figure (Shaw
and Nodder’s ‘ Nat. Misc.’ pi. 685) by a person whom there is no reason to suppose
was a competent authority, is said to have been killed at the Cave-hill near
Belfast in or prior to 1819 ; (2) A female stated by Fox in 1827 (Synops. Newc.
Mus. p. 65) to be in his possession “ through the favour of Mr. Yarrell, and to
have been shot near Welwyn in Hertfordshire—a statement, however, which
never having been publicly verified by the Author of this work must therefore
be held erroneous ; and (3) Two said to have been killed in Feb. 1848 in
Ashdown Forest, Sussex, one of which, an adult male, was seen by Mr. Knox,
who has now reason to disbelieve the statement. The statement as to a bird in
Hampshire by Mr. Reeks (Zool. p. 9023) originated, as he has informed the
Editor, in a mistake.
Lastly there are many records in which the species is named as having occurred
in Great Britain, but obviously without discrimination. Among these may be
cited (1) Kirkmichael, Dumfriesshire, by Burgess (Stat. Acc. Scotl. 1791, i . p.
60) ; (2) Washing Green, Midlothian, by P. Neill, it is supposed (Allan Ramsay’s
‘Gentle Shepherd, &c. with illustrations’ 1808, i. p. 271) ; (3) Worcestershire,
by Hastings (N. H. Worcest. 1834, p. 65) ; (4) Hulston, by Rylands on
Glazebrook’s authority (Nat. 1837, p. 352) ; (5) Kent, by Mr. P. Bartlett
from Plomley’s statement (Zool. p. 621) ; (6) Eccles in Berwickshire, by James
Thomson (New Stat. Acc. Scotl. iii. Berwicksh. 1845, p. 53) ; and (7) Somerset
shire, by the late Mr. W. Baker (Archseol. and N. H. Soc. Somersetsh. Proe.
1849-50, pt. ii. p. 144). Fuller details of many of these statements than it is
here possible to give have been furnished by Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun. in the
‘Zoologist’ for 1877 (pp. 242-250).