56 BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS, 
similar habits it has no urgent inclination to force us to notice 
it by the incessant repetition of its note. The nest strongly 
resembles that of the Stone-chat. It is also usually placed 
on the ground, and is fully as hard to find as that bird’s. 
The eggs, five or six of them, are of a uniform blueish green, 
very slightly speckled or marked with dull-red—Fiy. 17, 
plate IT, 
54. WHEAT-EAR—(Sazicola cenanthe). 
Fallow-chat, White-rump, White-tail, Fallow-smick, Fallow- 
finch, Chacker, Chackbird, Clodhopper, with some other quainter 
names still, which I have noted down, and yet another or two 
common to the Wheat-ear and Stone-chat, such as Stone-chacker. 
A common bird enough here, and with some of the more obvious 
habits of the Stone-chat. It perches on the stone walls as one 
approaches it, and flirts its tail and chacks, and then diving below 
the wall on the far side, re-appears again ten or twelve yards lower, 
and acts as before; and so on for a hundred yards or more. The 
stone wallsin our district and the large heaps of stones, removed 
in reclaiming parts of the moor and flung promiscuously together 
any where to be out of the way, afford them capital breeding 
places. In other countries old walls, or holes in the sides of pits 
or excavations, serve their purpose. The nest is not very artistic 
or well-finished, and formed of many different materials—bents, 
feathers, dry roots, fur, in short any waste matters which may 
have come in the way of the builders. The Eggs are five or six 
in number, and of a pale-blue colour not so dark as those of the 
Hedge-Sparrow. It is said that people accustomed to the habits 
of the Wheat-ear are able to find its nest without difficulty, 
* from the occurrence of certain noticeable signs in its neigh- 
bourhood.—/%ig. 1, plate LIT. 
