I have said white bird--for as the story went on the white-breasted bird became white, hoary with attendance on generations of Oxenhams. It may be interesting, at all events it is amusing, to note, how out of this pious hoax serious convictions have grown that the bird really has been seen, and that repeatedly. Messrs. Lysons say: “This tradition of the bird had so worked upon the minds of some of the members of the family, that it is supposed to have been seen by William Oxenham, who died in 1743.” Then they go on to relate this particular instance, which is given on the authority of a note in the manuscript collections of William Chapple. Mr. Chapple “had the relation from Dr. Bent, who was brother-in-law to Mr. Oxenham, and had attended him as a physician. The story told is, that when the bird came into his chambers he observed upon the tradition as connected with his family, but added, he was not sick enough to die, and that he should cheat the bird; and that this was a day or two before his death, which took place after a short illness.” The story is told more fully in a letter printed in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of April, 1862, from J. Short, Middle Temple, to George Nares, jun., of Albury. “I have received an answer from the country in relation to the strange bird which appeared to Mr. Oxenham just before his death, and the account which Dr. Bertie gave to Lord Abingdon of it is certainly true. It first was seen outside the window, and soon afterwards by Mrs. Oxenham in the room, which she mentioned to Mr. Oxenham, and asked him if he knew what the bird was. ‘Yes,’ says he, ‘it has been upon my face and head, and is recorded in history as always appearing to our family before their deaths; but I shall cheat the bird.’ Nothing more was said about it, nor was the bird taken notice of from that time; but he died soon afterwards. However odd this affair may seem, it is certainly true, for the account was given of it by Mrs. Oxenham herself, but she never mentions it to any one, unless particularly asked about it, and as it was seen by several persons at the same time, I can’t attribute it to imagination, but must leave it as a phenomenon unaccounted for.” In both these accounts we have the story at second hand. The Hon. Charles Barker, /LL.D./, was rector of Kenn at the time, and during his tenure of the rectory, Mrs. Oxenham erected a monument in the church to her father and mother. But who was the J. Short, Middle Temple, who wrote the above letter to George Nares, jun., Albury? And what is more to the point, how came it to be dated December 24th, 1741, when Mr. William Oxenham, whose death it records, died on 10 December, 1743? Discrepancies and anachronisms meet us at every point in the story of the Oxenham omen.