64 SPRING 



grass, but wheatears prefer the stretches of smooth turf 

 cropped close by sheep and rabbits. The moorland is 

 parcelled out between them, with the titlarks' share much 

 larger than the wheatears'. Although the first travelling 

 wheatears may often be seen before the end of March, it is 

 well into May before the full summer population is settled 

 on the shorn grass slopes, and busy with nesting. The 

 wheatear nests in underground crevices or burrows ; and its 

 favourite place in the moors is where a heap of stones has 

 half sunk into the turf, and connects a maze of winding 



passages, or where 



(. 



or where a 

 frost - split rock has 

 shifted, forming a deep, 

 snug crack. Since 

 wheatears like smooth 

 turf, they are apt to be 

 found in sheltered hol- 

 lows where the sheep 

 gather and graze year 

 after year, by the streams 

 and the upland folds ; and often where a lonely shepherd's cot- 

 tage has tumbled into ruin, the only sign of life is the wheatear 

 flitting with its conspicuous patch of white from the fallen 

 wall, and perhaps a black magpie's nest stuck high in an old 

 apple-tree by the gateway In her narrow labyrinth among 

 the stones, the wheatear can nest without fear of the wicked 

 magpie, which otherwise might prove a too dangerous 

 neighbour for her eggs and young. Magpies are fond of 

 nesting in the clumps of thorns which nestle in the high 

 hollows of the moors ; they return to them in March, or even 

 February, and by the time that the old hawthorns break into 

 white blossom late in May, the nest is usually crammed full 

 with a mass of pied fledgelings. The gravelly spits and 



WHEATEAR 



