By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



49 



for it when in its native land, and though it was occasionally seen 

 by some of my companions, I was never so fortunate as to fall in 

 with it. It is described as of surprising fleetuess of foot, as its 

 name would lead us to infer ; and of strange confidence, or rather 

 carelessness of man, so unusual in other members of the family, to 

 which I have already called attention. 



11 Great Plover." (CEdicnemus crepitans). This is the largest 

 bird of the family with which we are acquainted in this country : 

 and is elsewhere known as the Thick-kneed Bustard, the Stone 

 Curlew, and the Norfolk Plover. Not long since it was frequently 

 to be seen on our open downs during the summer months, for it 

 leaves this country for warmer latitudes in the autumn, and I 

 have met with it within the tropics in Nubia in winter. Colonel 

 Montagu imagined that it never penetrated to the western parts 

 of England, but was confined to the eastern counties, where 

 undoubtedly it is most abundant : but I have information from 

 many quarters that it was very generally known in Wiltshire, 

 whose wide-spreading downs indeed offered it the retirement as 

 well as the space in which it delights. The late Mr. Marsh told 

 me that up to 1840 it was still common on the downs. Mr. 

 Benjamin Hayward of Lavington spoke of it as becoming more 

 scarce, but still occasionally to be seen on Ellbarrow and the higher 

 hills. The late Mr. Withers, of Devizes, mentioned that it had on 

 several occasions been shot on Roundway down, and brought to 

 him for preservation : and Wadham Locke, Esq., of the Cleeve 

 House, Seend, (to whose intimate acquaintance with birds I owe 

 many a lesson,) writes me word that he has seen a very large flock 

 of these birds in the air, migrating from north to south at the fall 

 of the year, when they made a most melodious whistling noise. 

 In addition to this satisfactory evidence, I will now add that for 

 several years past I have seen these birds on the downs of North 

 Wiltshire in a particular locality, which for obvious reasons I do 

 not desire to specify more minutely, and that during the summer 

 I can generally find them in or near their favourite haunts. Still 

 more interesting is the fact of their rearing their young in our 

 county, as I am informed by the Rev. Alexander Grant, Rector of 



