By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



53 



near Malrnesbury, to do duty on a Sunday, about one mile and a 

 quarter from Alderton, at the point where Alderton, Sherston and 

 Hullavington parishes meet, I passed an old crumbling dungheap 

 on the Foss way, and to my astonishment on that dungheap (by 

 the bye very like his native ones) sat a splendid male Hoopoe, as 

 calm and composed as possible, exactly as I have seen them in 

 Egypt, on every dungheap. I approached close to him to admire 

 him, and satisfy myself that this stranger at Alderton (but to me 

 familiar friend) was a real Hoopoe : he then gave one or two of 

 his peculiar jerks, and rising with a short undulating flight like a 

 jay rested on a hay-rick twenty yards distant: as I approached 

 the rick, he jerked himself impatiently once or twice as before, and 

 took flight for his dungheap, and again from that to the rick, but 

 no further ; (like the Vicar of Wakefield, who confined his migra- 

 tions from the ' Blue bed to the Brown ') precisely as the bird 

 appears everywhere from November to March in lower Egypt on 

 the banks of the Nile, only that having in that 'basest of king- 

 doms ' an infinite choice of dunghills he merely removes himself 

 and his wife (who is always with him) from the brown to the black, 

 and vice versa. In the case of the bird in question, on my return 

 from church there he was as before : during the week I forgot his 

 existence, and on the following Sunday, as I passed that way for 

 the same purpose, up jumped my friend from the back of the 

 dunghill, and settled on his hay-rick, and so I found him very 

 becomingly at rest on my return from service. The next day I 

 sought him, and found him at work upon his mix en, as bus} r as 

 possible and quite at home : he seemed to imagine that he had 

 gained a parochial settlement under my ministration, not being 

 aware that the Foss, which divided the dunghill and the rick, is 

 invariably the division of parishes : thus he lost the advantage of 

 being either in my care or that of the Yicar of Hullavington, but 

 I considered him entitled to my protection. I could not hear 

 however of his having been seen after that day, though I enquired 

 much after him." 



Again in 1854, Mr. F. Goddard reported to me the appearance 

 of another strange bird, supposed to be a Hoopoe, near the same 



