24 MAY 1946, Page 9

— And Cornish A number of these county societies seem to

be steadily increasing in membership, and will increase more. The Cornwall Bird Watching and Preservation Society has also just published its annual. its fifteenth, report. It is full of particular information of concern to all who interest themselves in birds, wherever they live. It is said, for example, that the golden oriole and the hoopoe are now considered regular migrants, and the blackcap is proved to be a winterer in Corn- wall. It adds to the claim that the nightingale is extending its range to know that it was heard last year in Penzance, which is, I should say, the most westerly point yet recorded. It has been heard this year, as I learn, at several places on the Usk. Again, there is striking evidence of the really astonishing spread of the fulmar petrel, now one of the most numerous of all our birds. Rarities seen during the year were numerous. They included temminck's stint and the scarlet grosbeak. Apart from making general observations, these societies make special studies of individual species. Leicestershire has brought out the strange collocation that the lesser whitethroat is correlated with boulder-clay!