As noted by, for example, Mead (1974), although formal bird ringing did not begin until the last decade of the nineteenth century, there exists an array of earlier records of the marking, and sometimes later recovery, of wild birds. Ticehurst (1932) wrote that: ‘In 1910 I proved by ringing birds that Swallows [Hirundo rustica] returned to exactly the same house to nest where they had nested the previous year, and at the time I thought I was the first to prove this in England. I find, however, that Dawson Downes sometime prior to 1848 ascertained by tying a piece of silk to the leg of a Swallow that it returned to the same spot at Gunton [Suffolk] at about the same time over a series of years.’