T he W h e a t e a b , or Fallowchat, as it is sometimes
called, is another summer visiter allied to the Stonechat and
Whinchat, which generally makes its appearance from the
southward about the middle of March, and is one of the
earliest among those birds which seek to pass the season of
reproduction far to the north of their winter-quarters.
In reference to their appearance in spring, Mr. Couch,
who resides on the coast of Cornwall, remarks that “ the
Wheatear reaches our shores so early in the morning as
to prove that it must have taken flight from the French
coast long before daybreak. Few come after nine o’clock in
the morning, and none after twelve. They sometimes perch
on our fishing-boats, at two or three leagues from land, in an
almost exhausted state. They do not cross the Channel
every day; and as it usually happens that our own residents
are not the first to arrive, it is common for them to abound
in a morning; but in the afternoon, and for a day or two
after, for not one to be seen. My own observations do not
confirm the remark, that one sex materially precedes the
other: they rather appear to arrive indiscriminately. Through
the summer, the Wheatear is a common bird along our
coasts, on the slopes fronting the sea, somewhat above the
bare uncovered rocks. On the least alarm, they flit over the
precipice, and take refuge in some place of shelter.”
These birds, arriving in numbers probably along the
whole line of our southern coast, soon disperse themselves
over the downs, warrens, and fallow lands, some of them
seeking for a time very high northern latitudes, to be hereafter
enumerated.
The Wheatear feeds principally on worms, and various
insects, some of which are taken on the wing, the bird returning
to its former elevated position on a lump of earth,
or the top of a stone, from whence it keeps a sharp look-out,
both as a measure of precaution as well as for food; but is
not so prone to alight on a bush as either of the species of
Saxicola already described.
The Wheatears begin to make their nest in the southern
parts of our island by the middle of A pril; and on the sea-
coast, where some remain, Mr. Couch says, “ our prying
fisher-boys inform me that it is concealed in the bottom of a
deep recess, beneath some huge stone or rock, far beyond the
reach of their arm. Consequently, when discovered, a circumstance
of some difficulty,— they are able to obtain it
only by means of a hook fastened to the end of a rod. The
Wheatear frequently makes its nest in old walls, or in pits
from which stone, gravel, sand, or chalk have been dug out.
In the Journal of a Naturalist, Mr. Knapp says, “ one had
made her nest deep in the crevice of a stone quarry, so carefully
hidden by projecting fragments as not to be observed
from without until part of the rock was removed; her fabric
was large and rudely constructed with dried bents, scraps of
shreds, feathers, and rubbish, collected about the huts on the
down, and contained four pale blue eggs. Another hen-bird
had descended through the interstices of some rather large
loose stones, as a mouse would have done, and then proceeded
laterally to a hollow space in a bank, against which
the stones were la id ; and so deep had she penetrated, that
many of the stones had to be removed before we could discover
her treasure : as no appearances led to any suspicion
of a nest, it would never have been detected but for our
watchfulness.”
The same degree of caution, however, is not always observable.
In Suffolk and Norfolk, the Wheatear, according
to Mr. Salmon, « is very abundant on the warrens, and
usually selects a deserted rabbit-burrow, in which it places its
nest at some little distance from the entrance : it is composed
of dried roots, intermixed with feathers, rabbits’ down,
and other light substances ; and it generally contains six pale