THE WHINCHAT 
PRATINCOLA RUBETRA 
Loca names in surrounding counties: ‘ Furzechat ”’ 
(Essex). 
Status IN British Avirauna: A widely distributed 
summer visitor, becoming rarer and more local in the 
south-west of England and in Ireland. 
RapiaL DistTrRiBUTION WITHIN FIFTEEN MILES OF ST. 
Paut’s: Here again we have a species that with charm- 
ing persistency returns to old-time haunts that are fast 
being transformed. I know of several localities—hay- 
meadows close to Wormwood Scrubbs and Park Royal— 
in which the dread notice-board proclaims an “ eligible 
building-site,”? but to which the Whinchat returns each 
summer, and will doubtless do so until these selfsame 
meadows are converted into the hollow pretences of 
suburban gardens. 
The Whinchat, notwithstanding almost yearly changes, 
still continues to visit most of the outlying portions 
of the Metropolitan area wherever it can find suitable 
haunts, such as meadows and rough, furze-grown 
ground. It is perhaps most local in the Essex portion 
of the fifteen-mile radius. It breeds at Wimbledon, 
Streatham, Dulwich, Norwood, and Croydon, and in 
many intervening places ; whilst westwards and north- 
wards it may be traced over the Richmond, Osterley, 
Hanwell, Twyford, Sudbury, Wembley, Harrow, Enfield, 
and Epping areas. In the more outlying districts, where 
meadows, golf links, and open spaces are ‘commoner, the 
bird, of course, is met with in increasing numbers. Inci- 
dentally I may mention that on April 26, 1905, I observed 
a female Whinchat flitting about the tulips in the orna- 
mental gardens of the Victoria Memorial opposite 
Buckingham Palace. It frequently perched on the iron 
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