Mr. Cotton says: “On my pointing out to Mr. Oxenham that at least the earlier notices of his family tradition did not seem to warrant his supposition that the apparition was limited to the head of the family, he informed me that, so far as he was aware, it had always been the oral tradition in the family that the bird was bound to appear before the death of the head of the family, and that it might or might not appear at other deaths, but certainly not that it always did so. Mr. Oxenham, who was himself a boy at the time, does not remember hearing of any appearance of the omen to his great uncle, Richard Oxenham, the head of the family in the previous generation, who died August 24th, 1844, at Penzance. He was a bachelor, and lived alone, and only his sister, Mrs. Oddy, who herself died in 1861, was with him at the time of his death. It certainly was not seen at the death of the Rev. W. Oxenham, Vicar of Cornwood and Prebendary of Exeter, younger brother of the above, six months earlier, Feb. 28th, 1844, nor at the death of either of the younger brothers of the late head of the family, G. N. Oxenham, Esq., before mentioned. On the other hand, it is stated by a relative of the family now living, that when Mrs. Oddy died, her daughter, now dead, spoke of birds flapping and hopping at the bedroom window the night before.” My mother was most intimate with Miss Anne Oxenham, who lived in the Close, Exeter, one whom I remember and loved. My mother informed me that the bird was seen when Miss Anne Oxenham’s sister died. But on what authority she received this I am unable to say. Finally, in September, 1891, on the death of a female descendant of the Oxenhams, the Rev. C. S. Homan states that, while at Oxenham Manor (Oxenham, by the way, never was a manor), he was one day up very early by daylight, and as he went out of the front door, he just caught sight of what in the early light looked like a very large white bird. His father said, “Perhaps it is the Oxenham white bird; if so, there ought to be a death in the family.” Within a few days they noticed in the newspaper the death of a connexion of the family, and were struck by the coincidence.[12] In these last cases, it will be seen that the bird has grown plump and big. It was first white-breasted, then white, and finally a big white bird. So fables grow. One wonders where the bird nests, how many little white-breasted ones it has had, what has become of them! For that it is the old hoary humbug there can be little doubt becoming blanched with age, and stout, “going in for its fattenings,” as the Yorkshire folk say. “LUSTY” STUCLEY If Devonshire has turned out a number, and a very considerable number, of gallant and honourable gentlemen, she has also given birth to some great scoundrels, and one of these was Thomas Stucley or Stukeley.