CONTENTS.
Page [The Wheatear] 1 [The Whinchat] 9 [The Stonechat] 13 [The Wood Warbler] 16 [The Willow Warbler] 24 [The Chiff-chaff] 28 [The Nightingale] 32 [The Blackcap] 44 [The Orphean Warbler] 51 [The Garden Warbler] 59 [The Common Whitethroat] 67 [The Lesser Whitethroat] 71 [The Redstart] 74 [The Sedge Warbler] 81 [a]The Reed Warbler] 83 [The Grasshopper Warbler] 86 [Savi’s Warbler] 88 [The Aquatic Warbler] 91 [The Marsh Warbler] 92 [The Great Reed Warbler] 101 [The Rufous Warbler] 103 [The Pied Wagtail] 106 [The White Wagtail] 110 [The Grey Wagtail] 112 [The Yellow Wagtail] 117 [The Grey-headed Wagtail] 121 [The Meadow Pipit] 124 [The Rock Pipit] 130 [The Tree Pipit] 135 [The Water Pipit] 138 [Richard’s Pipit] 142 [The Tawny Pipit] 146 [The Pennsylvanian Pipit] 149 [The Red-throated Pipit] 152 [The Spotted Flycatcher] 155 [The Pied Flycatcher] 160 [The Swallow] 170 [The Martin] 184 [The Sand Martin] 187 [The Common Swift] 191 [The Alpine Swift] 199 [The Nightjar] 204 [The Cuckoo] 219 [The Wryneck] 242 [The Hoopoe] 249 [The Golden Oriole] 262 [The Red-backed Shrike] 276 [The Turtle-dove] 282 [The Landrail or Corncrake] 288 [General Observations] 299 [Conclusion] 330 [Index] 335
THE WHEATEAR.
(Saxicola œnanthe.)
One of the earliest of our feathered visitors to arrive is the Wheatear, which comes to us as a rule in the second week of March; and, although individuals have been seen and procured occasionally at a much earlier date, there is reason to believe that the spring migration does not set in before this, and that the birds met with previously are such as have wintered in this country; for it has been well ascertained that the Wheatear, like the Stonechat, occasionally remains with us throughout the year. It is a noticeable fact that those which stay the winter are far less shy in their habits, and will suffer a much nearer approach.
The name Wheatear may have been derived either from the season of its arrival, or from its being taken in great numbers for the table at wheat harvest. Or, again, it may be a corruption of whitear, from the white ear which is very conspicuous in the spring plumage of this bird. Many instances are on record of Wheatears having come on board vessels several miles from land at the period of migration, and from the observations of naturalists in various parts of the country it would appear that these birds travel by night, or at early dawn. I do not remember any recorded instance in which they have been seen to land upon our shores in the daytime.
In Ireland, according to Mr. Thompson,[1] the Wheatear arrives much later than in England, and does not stay the winter. With regard to Scotland, Macgillivray states[2] that it is nowhere more plentiful than in the outer Hebrides, and in the Orkney and Shetland Islands; and from the fact of his having observed the species near Edinburgh on the 28th of February, we may infer that a few, as in England, occasionally remain throughout the year.
The number of Wheatears which used to be taken years ago upon the South Downs in autumn was a matter of notoriety.
“Hereabouts,” says an old chronicle of East-Bourne, “is the chief place for catching the delicious birds called Wheatears, which much resemble the French Ortolans;” and Wheatears play an important part in the history of this town. Squire William Wilson, of Hitching, Lord of the Manor of East-Bourne, was in Oliver Cromwell’s time vehemently suspected of loyalty to the Stuarts; and one Lieutenant Hopkins, with a troop of dragoons, swooped down on Eastbourne to search the squire’s house, and, if needful, arrest him as a Malignant. The squire was laid up with the gout; but Mistress Wilson, his true wife, with the rarely-failing shrewdness of her sex, placed before Lieutenant Hopkins and his troopers a prodigious pie filled with Wheatears, “which rare repast,” the chronicle goes on to say, “the soldiers did taste with so much amazement, delight, and jollity,” that the squire upstairs had ample time to burn all the papers which would compromise him, and when Lieutenant Hopkins, full of Wheatear pie, came to search the house, there was not so much treasonable matter found as could have brought a mouse within peril of a præmunire. At the Restoration the Lord of the Manor became Sir William Wilson of Eastbourne, a dignity well earned by his devotion to the Royal cause; but the chronicle goes on to hint that Charles II. was passionately fond of Wheatears, and that possibly the liberality of the squire, in supplying his Majesty’s table with these delicacies, may have had something to do with the creation of the baronetcy.