THE WHEATEAE. 39 



of twisted horse-hair placed vertically across the line of 

 passage from either entrance to the opposite outlet, and the 

 bird attempting to run through is almost certain to get its 

 head into one of these loops and be caught by the neck : 

 upon the least alarm, even the shadow of a passing cloud, 

 the birds run beneath the clod and are taken. However 

 inefficient these traps may appear to be from the description, 

 the success of the shepherds is very extraordinary. One 

 man and his lad can look after from five to seven hundred 

 of them. They are opened every year about St. James's 

 Day, July 25th, and are all in operation by August 1st. 

 The birds arrive by hundreds, though not in flocks, in daily 

 succession for the next six or seven weeks, probably de- 

 pending on the distance northward at which they have 

 been reared. The season for catching is concluded about 

 the end of the third week in September, after which very 

 few birds are observed to pass. Pennant, more than a 

 century since, stated that the numbers snared about East- 

 bourne amounted annually to about 1840 dozens, which were 

 usually sold for sixpence the dozen, and Markwick, in 

 1798, recorded his having been told that, in two August 

 days of 1792, his informant, a shepherd, had taken there 

 twenty-seven dozens ; but this is a small number compared 

 with the almost incredible quantity sometimes taken, for 

 another person told the same naturalist of a shepherd who 

 once caught eighty-four dozens in one day. In Montague's 

 time (1802) the price had risen to a shilling the dozen, and 

 it is now much higher, through the greater demand for and 

 smaller supply of the birds." ^ 



The food of this species consists of insects, worms, and 

 &;rubs of various kinds. 



1 Mr. Hardy writes that it is occasionally caught accidentally at the mouths 

 of rabbit-holes, on the coast near Oldcambus, in traps set for rabbits. — MS. 



Notes. 



