228 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



pioneers are males, but in April both sexes arriv-^e together. 

 The song period ends in June. 



The food consists of small worms, insects and molluscs, 

 especially the small helices which frequent the short sheep- 

 cropped grass on downs and cliff-tops. Caterpillars are taken 

 to the young, and Miss Turner has seen them fed with the 

 warningly coloured and supposed distasteful cinnabar moth. 

 A hen I had under observation fed her young with numbers of 

 fern chafers, and once with a small heath butterfly ; the cock, 

 singing constantly from a grassy knoll, never attempted to 

 hunt, though I have seen another assiduous in his attentions, 

 and he is also said to help to build the somewhat untidy nest. 

 Nuptial competition leads to strange displays and- furious 

 fights. On Holy Island I watched two rival males combine 

 in an attack on a cock Greenlander, whilst the hen apparently 

 paid no attention to any one of the three. The birds dashed 

 amongst the dunes with w'onderful speed, fought in couples or 

 all three at once, until, in the whirl of struggling wing, beak 

 and claws, it was impossible to distinguish individuals ; all 

 the time one or more kept up florid song. At times one 

 bird would dance and whirl by itself in a frenzy of excitement, 

 throwing itself about in ecstatic mazes, or with drooped wings 

 and widely fanned-out tail, would exhibit its charms. The 

 Wheatear not only nests in holes, but bolts into them for 

 shelter from weather or an enemy ; when there was a trade 

 in " ortolans " Wheatears were captured in large numbers by 

 the shepherds on the South Downs, who prepared shelter 

 burrows for them in which a wire springe was fixed. 



Rabbit-burrows are the usual nesting holes on the sand- 

 dunes and downs, but on the hills stone walls, clefts in rocks 

 and peat-stacks are used ; in these a loosely built nest of grass 

 and roots, with rabbit fur, wool, hair or feathers serves for the 

 five to six pale blue eggs (Plate 84), which are usually laid late 

 in April or early in May. Two broods are recorded, but one 



