blue eggs. The nest is easily detected by a little observation,
for in such situations the old birds amass a considerable
number of small pieces of the withered stalks of the brake,
Pteris aquilina, on the outside at the. entrance of the burrow
: by noticing this circumstance its nest is sure to be
discovered.” I have more than once found the nest in a
fallow field under a large clot, to which my attention was
drawn by a portion of the materials of which the nest was
composed appearing outside the hole through which the bird
passed to the hollow space within. The eggs are of a uniform
delicate pale blue, measuring tqn lines and a half in
length, and seven lines and a half in breadth.
The male sings prettily, but not loud, sometimes even
when hovering on the wing, either near his nest or his
partner. Mr. Sweet, in his British Warblers, says, “ that
in confinement the Wheatear is continually in song, and
sings by night as well as by day : their winter song is the
best and the most varied.”
Whether owing to the art with which the nest of this
bird is mostly concealed, or placed beyond the reach of danger
; whether from the great number of the parent birds that
breed here ; or that in autumn the numerous families migrate
toward the same point on our southern coast from which to
take their departure ; but the number of these birds seen and
taken every autumn in the county of Sussex alone is very
extraordinary.
The extensive downs between Eastbourne and Beachy-
head are visited by the Wheatear from the end of July to
the middle of September by hundreds in daily succession.
Other portions of the downs along the southern coast have
their share also of these periodical emigrants; and as they
are then fat and of good flavour, it is customary to dress them
by dozens at the inns of the numerous watering-places on the
Sussex coast.
The birds are supplied in profusion by the shepherds, who
form numerous traps for them in the turf of the downs over
which their flocks and cattle graze. The Wheatear trap is
formed by cutting an oblong piece of turf from the surface,
about eight inches by eleven, and six inches thick, which is
to be taken up in a solid mass, and laid in the contrary way
both as to surface and direction over the hole, thus forming
a hollow chamber beneath it. Besides this chamber, two
other openings are also cut in the turf, about six inches wide
and of greater length, which lead into the chamber at opposite
ends, that the bird may run in under the turf through
either of them. A small straight stick, sharpened at both
ends, not very unlike a common match, but stouter, is fixed
in an upright position a little on one side of the middle of
the square cbamber ; the stick supports two open running
loops of twisted horse-hair placed vertically across the line of
passage from either entrance to the opposite outlet, and the
bird attempting to run through is almost certain to get his
head into one of these loops and be caught by the neck : i
upon the least alarm, even the shadow of a passing cloud, the
birds run beneath the clod and are taken.
However inefficient this trap may appear to be from my
description, the success of the shepherds is very extraordinary.
It is recorded in the Linnean Transactions that as
many as eighty-four dozen have been caught by a shepherd
in one day; and Pennant states that the numbers snared
about Eastbourne amounted annually to about 1840 dozen.
It is not unusual, however, for a shepherd and his lad to look
after from five hundred to seven hundred of these traps.
They are opened every year about St. James s Day, the 25th
of July, and are all in operation by the 1st of August. The
birds arrive by hundreds in daily succession, but not in
flocks, for the next six or seven weeks, probably depending
on the distance northward at which they have been reared.
VOL. i . s