vi Preface. 



much of the papers I formerly wrote required to be rewritten ; 

 and a great deal of additional matter had to be added, to bring 

 up to present date anything approaching to a full history of the 

 birds of Wiltshire : for my aim is whether I succeed in ac- 

 complishing it or no to make this volume a record of all the 

 species which belong to our county as inhabitants or periodical 

 migrants, as well as of all such as have been known occasionally 

 to visit it. 



Moreover, having been obliged to spend many winters and 

 springs in warmer climates, I have had unusual opportunities of 

 making myself acquainted, in their own haunts, with many of the 

 rarer stragglers which occasionally visit our island. Previous to 

 the printing of my former papers on the Ornithology of Wilts, 

 I had only had opportunities of becoming personally acquainted 

 with the birds of Western and Northern Europe ; but since that 

 time I have rambled, gun in hand, and with binocular quite as 

 indispensable a companion to an ornithologist for several sea- 

 sons on the southern shores of France and Italy, in Spain and 

 Portugal, and, above all, in Egypt and Nubia ; and there I have 

 watched in its own home, and studied the habits and life history 

 of, many a bird which, though recognised in Great Britain as an 

 occasional visitor, very rarely comes in the flesh before the 

 British ornithologist. So that I have something to add from 

 personal observation elsewhere to my former account of some of 

 the feathered visitors to this county. 



In reprinting and collecting into a volume the ornithological 

 papers which were scattered over many volumes of the Wilt- 

 shire Magazine* let me first say that in preparing those papers 

 I did not scruple occasionally to gather from various standard 

 books on birds whatever suited my purpose, though I fear I 

 cannot now distinguish such, still less can I refer them to their 

 several authors. Also I would premise that this book has no 



Wiltshire Magazine, Vol. I, pp. 41-45, 105-115, 239-249 ; II., pp. 162-172, 

 290-301 ; III., pp. 337-357 ; IV., pp. 26-35,285-298 ; VI., pp. 167-182 ; VIL, 

 pp. 81-102 ; IX., pp. 45-57,211-222 ; XI., pp. 160-174 ; XII., pp. 44-72, 152- 

 185. See also for other ornithological papers Vol. III., pp. 129-145 ; VIII., 

 pp. 135-144 ; X., pp. 115-130. 



