po THE SMALLER BRITISH BIRDS. 



or on tlie outskirts of woods. Although Gilbert White, in his 

 "Natural History of Selborne," says that these birds remain in this 

 country during the winter, later authorities agree in stating that they 

 depart in autumn for warmer climates, and express their opinion that 

 the mistake has arisen from their many points of resemblance to the 

 Stonechats, which, as we have said, certainly stay all the year round. 

 There seem to be only two authentic instances on record of Whinchats 

 having been seen in England during the winter months; the first is 

 given by Macgillivray, who received it from his correspondent, the 

 Rev. Robert Holdsworth, of Brixham. This gentleman states, "In a 

 path near my residence, situated at the entrance of the river Dart, 

 I found a Whinchat dead during a very severe frost, January 20th., 

 1829." The second is to bo found in Neville Wood's "British Song 

 Birds;" he says, — "Mr. H. Barlow, of Cambridge, informs me that 

 during the remarkably mild winter of 1833, he observed the Whinchat 

 hopping about near some furze bushes on a common in his neigh- 

 bourhood. He supposes that these individuals must have wintered in 

 Britain, as he observed them each time near the same spot. They 

 were bi'isk and lively as at midsummer, and perhaps more so, being 

 incited by the cold to activity. They were never heard to sing." It 

 is probable that the birds observed in the instances mentioned, re- 

 mained here from some unusual and accidental causes, and there seems 

 little doubt that the Whinchats depart, almost to a bird, in the 

 middle of October, or in very mild autumns at the beginning of 

 November. 



The song of the Whinchat, which is most frequently delivered from 

 the topmost spray of a hedge or bush, is sweet and lively, but 

 somewhat disconnected. Its oi-dinary cry resembles the syllable chack, 

 or cJud, uttered in a short and clnrp manner, whence, with the furze 

 or whin bush, to which it is so partial, its popular names. 



The nest of this bird, generally placed on the ground among 

 shrubs or herbage, is composed of stems and blades of grass, mosses, 

 and fibrous roots, and is lined with finer fibres and hair; it measures 

 about six inches in external diameter, with a cavity of about two and 

 a half, and is usually carefully concealed. The eggs, five or six in 

 number, are of a greenish blue colour, sometimes marked with minute 

 brownish red dots. 



The male is from five to five and a quarter inches in length, and 

 of a pale brown colour on the upper parts of the body, with an oval 

 pn.tch of dark brown in the centre of each feather; a white streak 

 runs from the beak over the eye to the ear coverts, and another 

 from the same point along the side of the neck, the two being 



