WAYSIDE NOTES. 449 



shepherds and their dogs. In the winter these Sparrows probably 

 migrate into Amesbury for warmth and food. We were rather 

 surprised not to see a single Wheatear either at Stonehenge or on 

 the other portion of Salisbury Plain over which we passed on the 

 previous day, between Blandford and Salisbury. I was the more 

 surprised at this, as I always thought Wheatears were very 

 plentiful on the Wiltshire downs; and the Rev. A. P. Morris, the 

 vicar of Britford, near Salisbury, in his notes on the birds found 

 in the neighbourhood, says of the Wheatear :— " Common on our 

 downs and other suitable places. Hundreds of these birds used 

 to be caught at one time by the down shepherds in little turf-traps 

 arranged so as to contain a hollow passage, through which the 

 bird was sure to run." Either cultivation, which has increased 

 very rapidly of late years, or continued persecution by the 

 shepherds with their turf-traps, or most probably a combination 

 of these two causes, seems nearly, if not quite, to have extermi- 

 nated the Wheatears in this district ; for not one did we see on 

 any part of Salisbury Plain which we passed over, though we kept 

 a sharp look-out for them. 



There is a tolerably good though rather mixed museum at 

 Salisbury ; but there is a great want of space for a proper display 

 of the specimens, the birds especially, of which there is a large 

 collection, being very much crowded. Whole rows are placed on 

 shelves in large cases, and stand side by side, touching each other 

 and facing the visitor, so that it is impossible to see more than 

 the bills and breasts. The collection is a tolerably large one, the 

 object having been to include everything in the British list, and 

 to make it as nearly as possible a perfect collection of British, or 

 so-called British, birds. No doubt this is a laudable object, even 

 in a local museum, since it gives an opportunity for comparing 

 and identifying any of the rarer birds which may be procured, 

 and is also of use in other ways; but unless care is taken to 

 distinguish the ordinary local birds, as well as the rarer ones 

 taken in the neighbourhood, by correct labels with names, dates, 

 and localities, the collection is, to say the least of it, disappointing 

 to anyone who may examine it with the object of discovering what 

 birds have been obtained in that particular neighbourhood. A 

 catalogue of the contents of the museum may be obtained for 

 eighteenpence, in which a list of the birds is given, with an 

 indication of the localities from which some of the specimens 



2 K 



