14 INTRODUCTION. 



Evelyn, and the latter tells us in liis ' Diary/ that, when at 

 Oxford in 1675, he went to see 'that rare collection of na- 

 tural curiosities of Dr. Plot^s of Magdalen Hall, all of them 

 collected in this Shire/ The collection comprised, among- other 

 things, certain ' foules/ but what these were Evelyn does not 

 say ; probably the Cormorant, killed from St. Mary^s steeple, 

 and the white Linnet, given to him by Mr. Lane of Dedding- 

 ton, were included in the collection. 



In the account of Oxfordshire birds by the Revs. A. and 

 H. Matthews, to be more fully mentioned below, the authors 

 refer to ' an old manuscript list of birds, collected by the late 

 Dr. Lamb of Newbury, extending as far back as the latter 

 part of the last century,^ which was lent for their perusal by 

 Dr. Tomkins of Abingdon. Under the title of Ornithologia 

 Bercheria the list was, some years afterwards, printed in the 

 Zoologist (1880, pp. 313-325), the Editor furnishing* the follow- 

 ing information relating to it : — ^ This list, it would seem, was 

 originally intended for publication in the "Transactions of the 

 Linnean Society,''^ and was forwarded for that pm-pose, about 

 the year 18 14, to Thomas Marsham, who was then Treasurer 

 of that Society. For some reason, however, it never appeared, 

 and the original MS., as we learn from the Assistant Secretary, 

 was either lost or mislaid during the subsequent removal of 

 the Society from the rooms formerly occupied in Soho Square. 

 A copy, however, is in the possession of the Rev. W. Smith 

 Tomkins of Weston-super-Mare, who has kindly placed it at 

 the disposal of the Editor for publication in the Zoologist.' 

 This list refers to Oxfordshire, inasmuch as some of the birds 

 recorded in it were procured on that part of the river Thames 

 which divides this county from Berkshire, such occurrences 

 belonging therefore with equal propriety to both counties. 

 It is also interesting to compare the condition of the avifauna, 

 at the beginning of the last century, of the neighbouring 

 parts of this border county, which would probably differ very 

 little from that of the district treated of in the present 

 volume at the same time. 



An account of the Vertebrate Animals of the district is 

 appended to the IListory of Banhiri/ (1841), by Mr. Alfred 



