146 Midland Village: Railway and Woodland. 



the nest was but six or eight feet from the rails. 

 The young, when reared, will often haunt the 

 railway for the rest of the summer, undismayed 

 by the rattle and vibration which must have 

 shaken them even when they were still within 

 the egg. Occasionally a Wheatear will make its 

 appearance about the railway, but I have no 

 evidence of its breeding there ; nor is the Stone- 

 chat often to be seen here, though it is a summer 

 visitor not far off among the hills. 



Let me say incidentally that no one who has 

 either good eyes or a good glass ought ever to 

 confound the two Chats together. In the breed- 

 ing season the fine black head of the cock Stone- 

 chat distinguishes him at once ; but even the 

 female should never be the subject of a blunder, 

 if the observer has been at all used to attend to 

 the attitudes of birds. The Stone-chat sits up- 

 right and almost defiant, and is a shorter and 

 stouter bird than the Whin-chat, which perches 

 in an attitude of greater humility, and always 

 seems to me to deprecate your interference rather 

 than to defy it. And it is quite in keeping with 

 this that the ' chat ' of the latter is not so loud 



