Chapter VIII.
Animals, Birds, and Fishes,
Found in the neighbourhood of Souldern (principally copied from Beesley's History of Banbury, published 1841).
Animals – Badger, hare, fox (two varieties), hedgehog, marten (rare), otter, polecat or fitchet, rabbit, stoat, suole, common shrew, water shrew (rare), squirrel, hardy mouse, dormouse (rare), field or harvest mouse, field inouse (white variety), black rat (rare), brown rat, common rat, water rat, great but, common bat, pipistrelle or suiall bat, greater long-eared bat.
Birds―Blackbird (a white variety), bittern (very rare), bullfinch, bunting (reed or reed sparrow), buzzard (rare), bombarrel, chaffinch or peafinch, chiffchaff, chat (stone or furze chat), chat wood (rare, not found now), coot, or bald-headed coot, cormorant,‡ creeper, or tree creeper, cross-bill (occasional, rare), crow (carrion or common), cuckoo, cuckoo's mate, or wryneck, curlew (occasional, very rare), dove (ring, rock, stock, turtle), duck (wild), fieldfare, field lark, or skylark, flycatcher (spotted), goatsucker, goldfinch, goose (common or wild), goose (beau), grebe (little), grebe (red-necked, occasional, very rare), gull (occasional), gull (lesser, black-backed, occasional), grosbeak, or hawfinch, harrier (common, hen), hawk (sparrow), heron (night, rare), hobby, jackdaw, jay, kestril, kingfisher, kite, lark (sky, a white variety), lark (wood), lapwing (crested, or pee-wit), linnet (green), linnet, (hedge), magpie, martin (house and sand), nightingale, nightjar or nighthawk, owl (barn, ivy, screech, short-eared, tawny, white), partridge (red-legged), plover (golden and lapwing), pheasant, pigeon (wood), pipit (meadow and tree), quail, rail (land), raven, redpole (lesser or common), redstart, redwing, robin, rook, shrike (red-backed), snipe (double, or great (very rare), jack, summer, woodcock―the great snipe), sparrow (hedge and reed), stint (little), swallow, swan§ (wild), swift, teal, thrush (missel or holm), titmouse (bearded, blue or tomtit, cole, great, long-tailed, marsh), titlark, wagtail (grey pied and yellow), warbler (black cap and sedge), water-rail, water hen (the moor hen), wheatear (not found now), wigeon, woodcock, woodpecker (great spotted or pied—not found recently), woodpecker (green), wren (golden-crested and wood), yellow hammer.
‡ A cormorant was shot a year or two ago (1882) on Mr. Crook's farm.
§ One shot by F. Stanton, Esq. (1881)
Reptiles―Lizard, snake (common and ringed), viper (rare), worm (blind and slow).
Fish—Bullhead, or miller's thumb, carp, chub, dace, eel (broad-nosed, sharp-nosed, silver), finscale, gudgeon, jack, lamprey (in the swale), loach (bearded now rare), minnow, perch, pike, roach, rudd, ruffe, stickleback (short-spined, ten-spined, three-spined, the variety locally called the redthroat is common), trout, tench.
Crustaceans―Cray-fish, water-flea.