70 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST, 
during that season, the young of the year appearing 
to migrate to some other locality. 
The whinchat is a summer visitor with us, as else- 
where, but during tle few months of its residence it 
is more abundantly distributed than the stonechat. It 
frequents the same localities, but is not so exclusively 
confined to the open forest or moorland; I have often 
met with it in pasture fields. Its habits are almost 
precisely those of the stonechat, though it shows more 
fearlessness, perching on the bushes of furze or heath, 
or sometimes on the hedges by the roadside. Its ordi- 
nary call is scarcely so stony in sound as the former, 
whilst its song is more musical; and I have heard it 
singing very sweetly while it hovered over a bush 
before perching, its notes much resembling those of the 
skylark. 
The nests of both species are placed in similar situa- 
tions at the foot of a bush of furze, or gorse, as it is 
called locally ; they are very difficult to find, and when 
discovered are by no means easily obtained from the 
midst of the natural chevaux de frise that surround 
them. The difficulty of finding that of the whinchat is 
greatly increased by the covered entrance leading to it, 
and I have often searched in vain when I felt sure, from 
the presence of the birds, that the nest was close at 
hand. 
That graceful and chastely-coloured bird, the Wheatear 
(S. Enanthe), is a regular summer visitor, but is confined 
to two or three spots—viz., Oxton Warren and Boughton 
Brake (both of them being rabbit warrens sparsely 
covered with furze bushes), and occasionally on that part 
of the forest adjacent to the toll-bar on the outskirts of 
the village. 
