The Timid H^heatear 



Vast quantities are caught about harvest-time on the South 

 Downs near Lewes, where they are esteemed a delicacy. There 

 have been shepherds, I have been credibly informed, that have 

 made many pounds in a season by catching them in traps. And 

 though such multitudes are taken, I never saw (and I am well 

 acquainted with those parts) above two or three at a time ; for 

 they are never gregarious. They may perhaps migrate in general ; 

 and, for that purpose, draw towards the coast of Sussex in 

 Autumn ; but that they do not all withdraw I am sure, because I 

 see a few stragglers in many counties, at all times of the year, 

 especially about warrens and stone quarries. G. W. 



THE wheatear is so timid a bird, that the mere shadow 

 of a cloud, skimming across the open downland it 

 haunts, is enough to send it running to shelter in some 

 little hollow. This habit was well known to the 

 South Down shepherds of olden times, when wheatears 

 were more plentiful than now, and could be trapped 

 in large numbers in horsehair snares. 



A famous old-time shepherd, named John Dudeney, 

 who tended his sheep on those Downs a hundred years 

 ago, recorded how a shepherd near Beachy Head took 

 nearly a hundred dozen wheatears in one day. He 

 caught so many that he could not find crow-quills 

 enough to thread them upon, and was obliged to gather 

 them in his smock-frock, and to call upon his wife to 

 make a sack of her petticoat. 



The wheatear is a beautiful little bird : his upper 

 parts a delicate grey, the under parts white, the wings 

 black ; and as he flies before you the white patch 

 above his restless tail catches the eye from afar. 



