WHEATEAR. 291 



look after from five hundred to seven hundred of these 

 traps. They are opened every year about St. James's Day, 

 the 25th of July, and are all in operation by the 1st of 

 August. The birds arrive by hundreds in daily succession, 

 but not in flocks, for the next six or seven weeks, probably 

 depending on the distance northward at which they have 

 been reared. 



Southey, in the fourth series of his Common-place Book, 

 mentions a beautiful trait of Hurdis, the poet, who used 

 to let the Wheatears out of their traps, and leave their 

 price (one penny) for their ransom. 



The season for catching is concluded about the end of 

 the third week in September, after which very few birds 

 are observed to pass. Stragglers are occasionally seen 

 later in the year. Mr. Sweet " observed a pair on the 

 17th of November, 1822, near the gravel -pit in Hyde 

 Park, which were quite lively, and flying about after in- 

 sects as brisk as if it had been the middle of summer." 



The diffusion of the Wheatear during summer over Eng- 

 land, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland is general ; it visits also 

 the Hebrides, and the islands of Orkney and Shetland. It 

 arrives in Denmark and Sweden about the middle of April ; 

 Mr. Hewitson saw numbers in Norway ; and Linneus ob- 

 served it in Lapland. The extreme northern range of this 

 apparently delicate bird is very extensive. It visits the 

 Faroe Islands and Iceland. Captain Sabine, in his Memoir 

 on the Birds of Greenland, says, " This species was not 

 seen on the shores of Greenland, on which we landed ; but 

 on our return homewards in October, 1818, off Cape Fare- 

 well, a few were seen at a distance from the land, doubt- 

 less on their passage southward. In our outward voyage, 

 in May, we also met with them in latitude 60 N. and 

 longitude 13 W., then most probably migrating north- 

 ward." In high latitudes, this little bird does not breed 



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