202 Alfred Charles Smith—In Memoriam. 
and he not only preached, but so far as lay in his power practised, 
the preservation of the less common English birds. No gun was 
ever fired within the charmed precincts of Yatesbury Rectory. In 
the belt of firs which sheltered the garden from the sweeping winds 
of the downs, a pair of Magpies—comparatively scarce in this part 
of the county—securely reared their young year after year; and 
the Brown Owls came to regard the paddock as so peculiarly their 
own territory that they have been known to fly at and almost knock 
off the Rector’s hat when he ventured to intrude on their domain 
in the evening. 
But though he gave his first love to the birds, he could not live 
at Yatesbury, in the very centre of the pre-Roman antiquities of — 
Northern Wilts, without turning his attention to archeology, and — 
perhaps, after all, the most valuable work which he has left behind 
him is to be found in the pages of the large quarto volume, “ The — 
Guide to the British and Roman Antiquities of the North Wiltshire 
Downs,” which he published to accompany the Great Map of a | 
Hundred Square Miles Round Avebury, with every vestige of 
antiquity marked upon it, which was the fruit of thirty years of 
observation and record in the immediate vicinity of his home, as ; 
the author sets forth in the dedication to his wife: ‘“‘ The constant — 
companion for the last thirty years of my rambles on horseback 
over the North Wiltshire Downs.” To anyone who would study ; 
the antiquities of the northern half of the county this book is, and — 
must remain, an indispensable authority. But for all that he was 
at heart more a naturalist than an archeologist, or an antiquary. -- 
He travelled very widely in Southern and Western Europe before. 
the days when railroads and Cook’s tours made Continental travel! 
universal. His first tour abroad was with his father in 1839, when- 
they visited Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Holland—and © 
from this time onwards his innate love of travel, combined with the ~ 
chest weakness which was always with him, and drove him to seek — 
a warmer climate in the winter and early spring, led to a series of 
tours, in most of which father and son travelled together—taking 
their own horses and carriages with them and driving leisurely on 
from one country to another, seeing in this way a great deal that 
