126 Stone-chat 



The " Bush-chats " differ from the other Chats, in having streaky 

 upper tail-coverts in place of ichite, and in their shorter tails. In 

 their habits, they are more suggestive of Fly-catchers. Both genera 

 are included in the sub-family Turdince (our Thrushes, Red-starts, 

 Nightingale, Robins, etc.), in which the young differ from the parents 

 in having their first plumage spotted. 



Of the three Chats which visit this country, the Wheatear and 

 \Miin-chat are summer \-isitants only : the Stone-chat is a resident 

 species, or, to speak more correctly, is to be found in most of its 

 favourite locahties all the year round. As our knowledge of migra- 

 tion has increased, and evidence accumulated, it is more and more 

 brought home to us that few, if any, birds are really " resident." 

 The Robin which breeds in a garden in the Western Highlands, 

 shifts his quarters further South as the winter approaches, and his 

 place is taken in the same garden by a Robin that bred further 

 North. 



With very few exceptions, I believe that every bird does migrate, 

 or indulge in local movements to some extent, with the change of 

 the seasons, and I certainly think this is true of the Stone-chat, 

 which can be seen on these Suffolk moorlands, more especially such 

 as actually- border the coast, with certaint\- and regularity any day 

 in the year. The species is constantly in evidence ; but the individual 

 birds frequenting the commons in summer are not the same Stone- 

 chats that we found in the same localities in winter. 



I have selected this interesting and most charming little bird 

 in preference to the Whin-chat or Wheat-ear, because it is to be found 

 on our coast all the 3-ear through, winter and summer alike, facing 

 the coldest weather with imperturable cheerfulness, and enlivening 

 many a wintry day, when little else is to be seen, with its bright- 

 coloured presence, busy, bustling movements, and pleasant — if 

 monotonous — cry. 



By rights, the Stone-chat is a soft-billed insect-eating bird. 

 How they can eke out a subsistence during some of the prolonged 

 frosts our uncertain climate occasionally indulges in, is very remark- 

 able. Take, for instance, the winter of 1890-91, when the ground was 

 frozen hard for a period of seven or eight weeks without a break ; 

 or the winter of 1894-95, when the frost lasted even longer, and the 

 northern Thrushes, hard-billed Finches and other birds, were dying 

 iji all directions literally by hundreds. Yet, among the victims I 

 never found a single Stone-chat. They, to all appearance, were 

 untouched by the desolation which encompassed them. A walk 

 along the " Bentlings " fringing the coast would reveal five or six 

 pairs, serenely happy in their wintry surroundings ; full of life and 

 movement, boldly following the intruder from bush to bush, flirting 

 their short tails "over their backs, ahd scolding incessantly, until 

 they had driven him out of their " compound." 



The Stone-chat is so common a bird that probably everyone 

 is familiar with its general appearance ; the black head, incomplete 



