By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 43 
happening to fall in with a storm of wind should be hurried out of 
its course, and carried to our shores, that one single occurrence 
suffices at the present day to place its name on our British list. 
I remark not now on the benefit or disadvantage to science of such 
a method; I only state that this is the method adopted by our 
British Ornithologists, and that by this means three or four new 
species are annually added to our list. And yet notwithstanding 
this modern method of swelling the list of British birds, and that 
with such additions to it from year to year, the last edition of our 
chief Ornithological work contains but 171 land birds, I have been 
enabled without difficulty and somewhat hurriedly to verify the 
existence of above 100 species in this county: doubtless by more 
extended inquiry this Wiltshire list might be still very much 
enlarged; but the fact of above 100 land birds being known to 
exist in the county is quite enough to prove the object of this paper 
—that Wiltshire presents a very good field for Ornithology. 
Of the two orders composing the other class of birds, I mean the 
“water birds,” it cannot be expected, as I before said, that this, 
as an inland district, should present a very large supply. Still even 
of these, there are some families (as the Plovers) which affect our 
open downs to a great degree, and there are others of essentially 
sea birds (as the Gulls and Terns) which are very frequent visitors. 
Besides this we have an occasional visit from many other varieties 
of water birds continually occurring; so that, again, the diligent 
Ornithologist, though he confine his observations to his own county, 
will not unfrequently meet with specimens of birds whose more 
peculiar domain is the sea and the sea shore. 
Another and a strong proof of the favourable retreat afforded by 
this district of England to certain species of birds, and one which 
by no means must be omitted in speaking of its Ornithology is, that 
for a great number of years our downs were the resort of that 
glorious bird, the Great Bustard, and though of late years it has 
most unhappily become extinct in Great. Britain, in consequence of 
the draining, enclosing, and cultivating of our waste lands; yet 
the downs of Wilts deserve honourable mention as one of its last 
strongholds. 
Now with all these facts before us, it is hardly necessary for me 
to remark again, that Wiltshire does offer a very large field to the 
inquiring Ornithologist. In great measure, too, it is an open and 
an untrodden field; for though in speaking of its Ornithology, one 
may not be silent of him, who, at the close of the last century, in 
an adjoining shire, was the great promoter and scientific observer 
of Natural History and Antiquities, and whose inquiries extended 
into Wiltshire; (I mean Gilbert White, the author of the charm- 
ing Natural History of Selborne:) and though here we may 
recollect with pleasure that the zealous naturalist and talented 
author of the Ornithological dictionary published in the early part 
of the present century—Col. Montagu—was a native as well as an 
9 
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