EUROPEAN WHEATEAR 289 



in America, but in the extreme north of Europe I have seen wheatears 

 in surroundings probably not dissimilar from their Alaskan haunts. 

 On the high fells of the Arctic coast of Norway, dreary wastes of 

 frost-shattered rocks and stones, a few wheatears share the desolation 

 with snow buntings, but in Scandinavia at any rate they are found 

 commonly on the lower ground and may be met with breeding in 

 rocky places anywhere from sea level. Farther south in Lapland, in 

 the conifer forest belt, wheatears are by no means confined to the 

 high ground above timberline, or even mainly found there. They 

 breed freely in forested country where there is a certain amount of 

 open, rocky ground and are there quite arboreal in their habits, far 

 more so than in England, as will be described under "Behavior." It 

 seems, therefore, that in Alaska the wheatear is more restricted in its 

 habitat than in comparable latitudes in Europe. The Alaskan birds 

 average slightly larger than the European ones (Ridgway, 1907) but 

 have not been considered distinct enough to separate. 



Spring. — In temperate Europe the wheatear is one of the earliest 

 migrants to arrive. Birds begin to reach the British Isles in the 

 second week in March, the main arrival extending from the end of the 

 third week to mid-April, though some passage continues till mid-May 

 and even later (N. F. Ticehurst, 1938, vol. 2). An average arrival 

 date in the English Midlands is March 23. Between the latitude of 

 the Mediterranean and that of England the birds must travel rapidly 

 on their way north, for the passage in the former region seems to begin 

 little earlier than the date of the first arrivals in the British Isles. 

 Meinertzhagen (1930) states that the spring passage in Egypt begins 

 early in March (earliest March 3) and that between about March 18 

 and April 10 the birds are abundant. Alexander (1927) found that 

 the passage near Rome extended from March 24 to May 2. The 

 interval between the dates of arrival in Britain and in the far north of 

 Europe is much greater than that between the former and the beginning 

 of the spring passage in the Mediterranean countries. Thus Blair 

 (1936) observed the first arrivals at Vadso on the northern shores of 

 Norway on May 20. At Nijni Kolymsk on the Arctic coast of east 

 Siberia the first arrival in 1912 was not seen till May 31 (Thayer and 

 Bangs, 1914); the conditions here are more severe than in Arctic 

 Norway. Data for Alaska are rather scanty, but arrival seems to be 

 no later than in northern Scandinavia in spite of the much greater 

 distance from the birds' winter quarters. Even as far north as Point 

 Barrow, Murdoch (1885) observed the first arrival in 1882 on May 19, 

 when the ground was still covered with snow except in a few places, 

 but the birds remained only a few days, passing on to the northeast 

 and not being seen again. Dall (Dall and Bannister, 1869) saw 

 numbers at Nulato on May 23 and 24, and Nelson (1887) obtained 



