292 From All Sources. 



Stork or Pflican Il)is, and ill tlif adult the tertiaiiis aiu pink willi wliite 

 borders. As I write the bird is being skinned. 

 Jhehim, Punjab, India, June 24, 1913 HUGH WHISTLER. 



[The above letter, owing to prolonged absence from home, got covered 

 up with a mass of other correspondence and has ouly just "turned u]) ' 

 again — it refers to a letter " No Pink Birds" by Mrs. E. A. Hartley on p^oc 

 93 of current Vol'^Ed.] 



From All Sources 



THE WHEATEAR {Sa.rlcl.i <>ei,<uithr, Linn.) 



DOWNLAND SHEPHERDS AND "SUSSEX ORTOLAN."- 

 These it would seem, are early days for the departure of our summer guests, 

 but already many of the migratory birds are on their way to warmer climes. 

 The Cuckoos began to leave us in July, and very soon tlie last of them — the 

 young birds of the year — will be gone ; the earlier broods of Swallows have 

 been assembling preparatory to their oversea journey for many days past ; 

 and the Swifts whose stay is the shortest of all, are now represented only by 

 a few solitary pairs who have got behindhand with their family business. 



Each and all of these familiar summer visitors become daily more 

 conspicuous by their absence, but there is one other bi)d— the Wheatear— 

 whose movements at this season are just as surely governed by that instinct 

 which is so unerring in its rule. Only those who wander upon the downs near 

 southern-coasts make the the acquaintance of this little sprite of lonely places, 

 and even then, were it not for the conspicuous blotch of white \i\)ui\ his back, 

 it would be very easy to overlook the " Sussex Ortolan." 



This latter name the Wheatear earned, of course, in the days when his 

 flesh was as highly prized as that of the bird from which he took his once 

 popular title. In bygone days a dish of Wheatears supplied the ''piece de 

 resintaiice" at all important feasts and public banquets, and fashionable folk 

 used to journey to Brighton to tickle their palates with this toothsome dainty 

 just as in later times they went to Colchester to feast on oysters and to 

 Greenwich for whitebait dinners. 



The trapping of Wheatears was, in fact, a regular business among the 

 shepherds of the down country, who in a good season made far more by 

 following this " side-line" to their regular occupation thai> by tending sheep. 

 The tr-ips were formed by cutting shallow trenches in the turf in tlie form 

 of a " T," the turves being replaced so as to form a branching tunnel, with 

 the daylight showing through at each of the three openings. In the darkest 

 part of these tunnels horse-hair nooses were set, and the wheatears, who 

 never can resist the temptation to explore any underground passage, were 

 caught as they ran through from one end to the other. On some of the liigli 

 downs near the coast, notably at Beachy Head, at Birling Gap, near Seaford, 

 and about Rottingdean, the shepherds made so many of these "coops," as 

 they were called, that the dow:is had the appearance of having been culti- 

 vated, but in September, when the season, which began in July, was over, 

 the sods of turf were carefully replaced- 



Extraordinary catches of Wheatears were sometimes made, (.specially 



