3844 Birds. 



As Mr. Hussey chanced very fortunately to be an observer of birds, he immediately 

 remarked that this was one he had never seen before, and pointed it out to his shep- 

 herd, who was with him, desiring him to watch the bird well while he returned to his 

 home, at the distance of a mile, for his gun. Before he went, however, he saw the 

 bird suddenly rise from the ground, and after a short flight of the most marvellous ve- 

 locity, return again to the fold, where it seemed to enjoy the shelter from the bleak 

 East wind, and to care nothing for the presence of the sheep, the men, and the dogs. 

 This short excursionary flight was renewed several times, which made Mr. Hussey 

 hesitate whether he should take the trouble to return home on so remote a chance of 

 still finding on his return so singularly restless and swift a bird; however, as the bird 

 always came back to the same spot after each successive excursion, Mr. Hussey hesi- 

 tated no longer, but hurried home for his gun, giving strict charge to the shepherd to 

 keep quiet, and on no account to lose sight of the bird. Now the shepherds of Salis- 

 bury Plain (in the midst of the bleakest part of which the parish of Tilshead lies) are 

 not remarkable for their sharpness, indeed, I fear we must own them to be the perfec- 

 tion of all that is dull, heavy, and ignorant; no wonder, then, that a bird so very rapid 

 in its movements as the collared pratincole should soon elude the slow gaze of the 

 heavy-eyed Argus, and that on Mr. Hussey's return, in answer to his inquiries as to 

 the whereabouts of the strange bird, he should be met with the provoking reply, — 

 " Doant knaw, zur, he flee'd away so terrible sudden that I could'n zee 'en nowhere, 

 I could'n : I never zee sech a bird to flee." Upon this, it may be supposed that Mr. 

 Hussey walked on somewhat disappointed, when, in a moment, at the distance of about 

 30 yards, up sprang the bird, and was darting off at a prodigious rate, but a well-aimed 

 shot laid it dead on the ground. On picking it up, the long wings and forked tail 

 caused Mr. Hussey and others to suppose it to belong to the swallow tribe, and the 

 dull-eyed shepherd, seeing no brilliant hues in the dead bird, as if to excuse his slow- 

 ness, exclaimed with a sneer of contempt, " Well, zur, 'taint much of a bird, arter all, 

 I'm zure ! " In addition to the above narrative, Mr. Hussey tells me that " the land 

 on which I found the bird, was of a stiff clay soil. I shot it close to the sheep-fold, 

 where there were sheep feeding off turnips ; the bird appeared to be rather tame, but 

 whether from exhaustion or nature I cannot tell.'' I have already remarked that Tils- 

 head lies in the middle of Salisbury Plain, and a more bleak, exposed situation can 

 scarcely be imagined. The village is long and straggling, and all around it are large 

 tracts of open down, now in a great measure brought into cultivation, but formerly a 

 vast expanse of unbroken turf. Here, it is well known, the great bustard had a strong- 

 hold, where he was chased with greyhounds, and afforded admirable sport to the Wilt- 

 shire squires of that day ; and here may still be found many of the family Charadriadae, 

 — the golden plover, and the dotterel, as well as the commoner peewit ; so that the si- 

 tuation is just such as seems fitted to the habits of the pratincole, and yet this is (I 

 believe) the first instance known of the occurrence of that bird in Wiltshire. Seldom 

 indeed does this singular bird appear to have visited our island; in addition to the few 

 captures recorded in Yarrell's ' British Birds,' the last of which was in 1840, I believe 

 it has but twice been observed, and both these occurrences were in the northern coun- 

 ties. It is singular, too, that while every record of the date of its capture has pointed 

 to the summer as the time chosen for its visit (the months of May and August being 

 the only ones on which it has been seen), the individual of which I am writing chose a 

 cold raw day in the middle of November, to make its appearance during an East wind, 

 on one of the most exposed parts of the bleak Wiltshire downs. I believe I have 



