Mr. A. C. Smith's “Birds of Wiltshire”

Abstract

BY all ornithologists Wiltshire will be admitted to be a county the birds of which are worthy of a volume; and all ornithologists, who know, even by name and reputation only, Mr. Alfred Charles Smith, will admit that he of all men is the proper author of that volume. Nominally but the Honorary Secretary of the Wiltshire Archæological and Natural History Society, the Rector of Yatesbury has for many years past been its most active officer, and the editor of its organ—the Wiltshire Magazine—to say nothing of the various “by-blows” of which he has at times been delivered in the shape of “Tours” in Portugal, Egypt, and Palestine, or of the very laborious and important work on the “British and Roman Antiquities of the North Wiltshire Downs”—that work which so narrowly escaped total destruction—nearly all the copies of the original edition having perished by a disastrous fire while in the binders' hands. Mr. Smith, too, is a Wiltonian of the Wiltonians; not only one of the best-known and most highly-esteemed men in his own county, but one of those who, in these days of universal brotherhood and cosmopolitan sympathies, are year by year becoming rarer. Hence he speaks from the heart when he expresses himself as in his opening paragraphs:—

The Birds of Wiltshire, comprising all the Periodical and Occasional Visitants, as well as those which are indigenous to the County.

By the Rev. Alfred Charles Smith (London: Porter, 1887.)