WILD LIFE ON THE SUSSEX DOWNS 



I saw one for the first time on Sunday, March i5th.^ 

 These cheerful little birds, with their pleasing song, 

 are always welcome additions to our down population 

 in the time of spring. I like to see them bustling 

 about the gorse coverts during the nesting season, and 

 it is very pretty to watch them hawking flies, as they 

 will do, from some convenient branch. The stonechat, 

 a cousin of the last-named bird, and indeed of the 

 wheatears also, is another migrant that always returns 

 to us with spring. Some few pairs of these birds, 

 unlike the whinchats, which completely desert us, 

 remain on the coast throughout the winter, and may 

 be seen upon the slopes at the foot of Beachy Head, 

 and about the western end of the Eastbourne Parade, 

 enjoying the winter sunshine and flitting about the 

 shingle. The male of this species, especially in his 

 full breeding plumage, is a singularly handsome little 

 creature, with his ruddy breast, velvety, jet-black head, 

 and white collar. They are by no means shy birds, and 

 will often allow one to approach within a few yards. 

 The stonechat is a far wanderer over the face of the 

 earth, penetrating to South and West Africa, Palestine, 

 Asia Minor, Persia, India, and Japan. It has been 

 observed by Mr. Harting and other naturalists that the 

 winter change of plumage in this bird, as in the wheat- 

 ear, is due not to a moult of feathers, but to an actual 

 change of the feather colouration. 



The various warblers, which visit us so numerously 

 in spring, are seldom seen upon the open downs, but 

 are to be found about every grove and copse lying in 

 the sheltered bottoms of these great hills. Linnets and 



^ The spring- migration was checked by three weeks of cold north- 

 westerly winds, and the main body of the spring birds did not appear till 

 Sunday, 26th April, when the wind had shifted to the south-west and rain 

 felL 



297 



