Preface. ix 



days quite familiar, and I was never tired of listening to their 

 histories as their owner loved to describe them. Moreover, I 

 made copious extracts from the MS. notes which he lent for 

 the purpose ; and I am indebted to him in no slight degree for 

 much and varied bird knowledge which he imparted to me 

 through a friendship of many years, which only terminated with 

 his death. Still more early was my acquaintance with the fine 

 collection of birds made by Mr. Ernie Warriner* of Conock 

 House, in the parish of Cherrington, near Devizes, which I had 

 frequent opportunities of examining on the many happy Sundays 

 which I spent there when at my first school hard by. That 

 was declared by its owner to be a perfect collection of British 

 birds, as recognised up to that date (about A.D. 1833), and con- 

 tains many fine specimens of very rare stragglers to Great 

 Britain, a considerable number of which I know from its col- 

 lector's mouth to have been Wiltshire specimens ; but as most 

 unhappily all record of them is lost, it is impossible to say which 

 are Wiltshire killed, and which are imported from other countries. 

 It is, I think, to Mr. Warriner and his beautiful collection of 

 birds that I am indebted for my first introduction to this de- 

 lightful branch of natural history, which has been my cherished 

 hobby ever since. Another ornithologist of olden time, whom 

 it was my great privilege to know, by a correspondence extend- 

 ing over several years, and subsequently by a visit which I paid 

 him at his beautiful seat in Yorkshire, was the well-known 

 Charles Waterton, whose essays in natural history and remark- 

 able autobiography are familiar to all, as is also his thorough 

 practical acquaintance with birds and their habits ; but whose 

 extraordinary power of preserving in their natural, life-like 



at whose death it was given by his widow, and a room to contain it added, 

 by her beneficence, to the South Wilts Museum, at Salisbury, where it may 

 now be seen, in admirable preservation. 



* Subsequently in the possession of his son, Captain Ernie Warriner, 

 and for many years deposited in the house of the late Mr. William Tugwell, 

 and now, by the kindness of the owner, deposited in the Museum of the Wilts 

 Archaeological and Natural History Society, at Devizes, 



