36 The Whinchat. 



bird does not show that partiality for walls and rocks which is so marked a 

 feature of the Redstart or Wheatear. In the pastoral districts the Whinchat, 

 directly after its arrival, frequents the fallows which are being worked for the 

 turnip crops, and on these places is found almost continuously until the neigh- 

 bouring pastures afford it sufficient shelter. The Whinchats never roost in trees, 

 but always on the ground. When they first arrive we find them at night on the 

 fallows, but for the remainder of the season grass fields and turnip lands are 

 frequented. In the wilder parts of its hauuts the Whinchat roosts amongst the 

 heath and the tangled undergrowth of gorse covert and brake. Another remark- 

 able trait in the character of this bird is its activity in the dusk of the evening, 

 a time probably when some insect that forms its favourite food is abundant ; and 

 its well-known call notes may be heard long after the birds themselves are con- 

 cealed from view by the falling shadows of night." 



This species is not a resident bird, although a few instances have been 

 recorded of its passing the winter in England. It arrives in the South of 

 England about the middle of April, reaching our Northern counties a week or 

 two later : late in September it again journe3'S southwards. 



My second captive Whinchat was given to me early in September, 1893, and 

 I turned it into an aviary with other British Birds and a pair of Rosa's Parrakeets. 

 I found it very shy ; but unfortunately I was unable to keep it long enough to 

 judge whether it was likely to overcame its want of confidence ; for within a week, 

 one of the Parrakeets caught it and crushed its skull, thus not only killing it but 

 rendering it useless as a cabinet specimen. It took readily to the usual soft food 

 mixture, commencing, like all soft-billed birds, with the Qgg and ants' cocoons 

 and only eating the bread and potato when these failed ; it was especially keen 

 on mealworms, probably not discovering any difference between them and its 

 natural diet of wireworms, and it devoured a considerable number of small 

 cockroaches ; flies and small moths it pursued and caught on the wing. It 

 usuall}^ passed the night either on the earth or upon some twigs stuck into the 

 earth. At times it uttered its thin piercing cry and its singular call-note ; but, 

 at that season, I, of course, could not expect it to sing. When an3'^one entered the 

 aviary it flew wildly from side to side ; but, at other times contented itself with 

 keeping at a respectful distance, never showing any anxiety to escape, or even 

 that restless impatience of captivity characteristic of the Hedge Accentor and 

 man}' other small birds wlien freshly captvired. 



