PREFACE. 



AN enforced holiday of six months, owing to illness, and con- 

 sequent absence from my parish, and confinement to the house 

 during the winter months, have given me the leisure which has 

 hitherto been wanting, for reprinting some papers on the Orni- 

 thology of Wilts, which I published above thirty years ago in 

 the earliest volumes of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural 

 History Society. To the reproduction of these papers in one 

 volume I have been repeatedly urged by many of my Wiltshire 

 neighbours, but by no one more persistently than by the old 

 friend to whose opinion, on all matters relating to birds, I have 

 long been accustomed to bow with implicit obedience (Professor 

 Alfred Newton), to whom I am proud to dedicate this volume, 

 but who be it thoroughly understood in the outset is in no 

 way responsible for any errors, heresies, blunders, or defects 

 which these pages may contain; for he has never seen them, 

 nor will see them until they are beyond the power of correction. 

 For when I speak of the reprinting the ornithological papers, 

 the first of which appeared in the first luimber of the Wiltshire 

 Magazine, I should explain that on the covers of those maga- 

 zines I have, from time to time, printed a notice, requesting to 

 be informed of the occurrence of any rare bird, or anything 

 interesting in regard to birds in all parts of the county ; and 

 thanks to the kindness of many friends, and some who had 

 previously been strangers to me, I have, in the course of the 

 thirty-four years which have elapsed since I first asked for such 

 information, received such a mass of valuable material that 



