116 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



little birds, backed by a dark grey sky, descends, as it were, in a 

 shower to the ground, to the music of their own sweet tinkling 

 notes." According to Mr. A. C. Smith, the Snow Bunting 

 " seldom comes so far south as Wiltshire ;" but it would perhaps 

 have been more correct to write that it has been " seldom 

 observed in Wiltshire," for in Devonshire it is frequently met 

 with in winter on the Dawlish Warren, and on Dartmoor, and is 

 a regular winter visitant to many parts of Cornwall. In Dorset, 

 Hants, and Sussex also, it is equally well known at that season of 

 the year. 



The Girl Bunting, as might be expected, has been found to 

 occur all over Wiltshire, and to breed in many parts of the 

 county ; and Yarrell is undeservedly taken to task for stating that 

 " it is generally found on the coast, and does not often appear to 

 go far inland." But this statement, which occurs in the third 

 edition of the ' History of British Birds,' is not to be found 

 in the fourth and latest edition of that standard work, a reference 

 to which would have saved Mr. Smith the trouble of penning this 

 and similar criticisms which are no longer applicable, and from 

 repeating ipsissimis verbis stories which have long ago been 

 shown to have been founded in error. As an example of this, 

 we may refer to his repetition of the story that Sir Thomas 

 Monson, in the reign of James I., gave £1000 for a cast of 

 falcons, a misapprehension of the facts which has long ago been 

 explained. (See ' The Zoologist,' 1880, p. 282). 



On the subject of that commonest of all birds, the House 

 Sparrow, Mr. Smith writes : — 



"In many of the Churchwardens' Account Books maybe seen as a 

 considerable item of the Church-rate annually, and for very many years 

 past, so many dozen Sparrows destroyed at so much per dozen, the price 

 varying according to the maturity or immaturity of the victims. Thus in 

 an old ' Churchwardens' Book' belonging to my small parish, dating from 

 above 100 years ago, I find the items every year of from 20 to 90 dozen 

 old Sparrows at fourpence the dozen, and from 10 to 70 dozen young 

 birds at twopence the dozen ; and these, with an occasional shilling 

 for the capture of a Fox, a groat for a Polecat, and an occasional sixpence 

 given to a sailor, seem to have formed the principal part of the church 

 expenses of the good parish of Yatesbury for above 100 years, — so lightly 

 did the church-rate sit upon our forefathers,— and this continued to within 

 forty years ago, when my predecessor considered Sparrow-killing scarcely 



