68 HABITS OF BIRDS. 



a season by catching them in traps ; and though 

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

 acquainted with those parts) above two or three at 

 a time, for they are never gregarious*." A recent 

 writer, agreeing with White, well remarks, that " if 

 the flocking of wheat-ears in the south of Eng- 

 land be an actual accumulation of them from other 

 parts of the country, it is different from their habits 

 in other places. They there both come and go with- 

 out any indication, and appear to have no association 

 beyond a single pair. They may flock there, however, 

 for there are many places where birds accumulate at 

 certain seasons without any explained cause, though 

 seldom more than two or three are seen together at 

 any other time of the yearf." 



There can be little doubt, we think, that the most 

 probable reason for the solitary habits of the wheat- 

 ear is the nature of its food; for living, as it seems 

 to do, on the few insects which frequent such places 

 as the little heaps of stones collected from the ridges 

 of a corn-field, it would be impossible for more than 

 a pair of these birds to find subsistence near one 

 spot. Pennant mentions as one cause for these birds 

 being so numerous at Eastbourne, that the neighbour- 

 hood " abounds with a certain fly which frequents 

 the adjacent hills for the sake of the wild thyme," 

 adding that the fly deposits its eggs, and also feeds 

 upon the thyme J. We are acquainted with no fly 

 of this description except the very small gall-fly 

 (Cy nips thymi ?), but which can never, we think, be 

 so abundant as to make it an object for so large a 

 species of bird as the wheat-ear to assemble, with the 

 hopes of a plentiful banquet. 



* Selborne, letter 13. f Brit. Naturalist, ii. 361. 



J Brit. ZooL, as before quoted. 



