It has long been the practice of our ornithologists to regard as ‘British’ any species of which one specimen has been found in a wild state within the limits of the United Kingdom. As a result of this excessive hospitality we find in the list about forty-three species of which not more than three specimens have been obtained; in a majority of cases only one. We also find that there are not fewer than forty-five exclusively American species in the list; but by what means, or by what series of extraordinary accidents, these lost wanderers have been carried thousands of miles from their own region, across the Atlantic, and have succeeded in reaching our shores alive, it is impossible to imagine. It is highly probable that some of the American, Asiatic, and European waifs that have been picked up in these islands were birds that had escaped from confinement; but whether brought by man or borne on the wings of the tempest to our shores, the fact remains that they are not members of our avifauna, and the young reader should clearly understand that only by a pleasing fiction are they called ‘British.’ I have spoken at some length on this subject, because it is one that appears to interest a great many persons who are not ornithologists. How many British species are there? is a question that is continually being asked of those who are supposed to know. I should say that, in round numbers, there are 200; at the very outside, 210. Seebohm, in the introduction to his great work, gives 222 as the number of species ‘fairly entitled to be considered British birds’; but he probably counted some that are usually regarded as irregular visitors, and perhaps others which have been exterminated in recent times. Of the 165 species set down in the ‘British’ list as occasional visitors, about 55 or 60 deserve that description, since they do, as a fact, visit the British Islands at irregular intervals. All the others are accidental stragglers.