WHEAT-EAE. 3f 



act till I hid myself most carefully and patiently behind the 

 door, that 1 made myself master of the vigilant little sentinel's 

 secret. It lays four or five, and, occasionally, six eggs, of a pale 

 uniform blue colour, perhaps tinned with a faint green shade. They 

 are almost as pretty as the Hedge-sparrow's. Fig. 15, plate II. 



51. BLACK REDSTART. (Phanicura fitnys). 



Tithys, Red start, Black Red-tail. It has been met with in 

 Britain perhaps half-a-dozen times, or rather more. 



51. STONE-CHAT. (Saxicola rubicola). 



Stone-chatter, Stone-clink, Stone-smick, Stone-chack, Stone- 

 smith, Moor-titling, Chickstone, Black-cap. A very common 

 bird in many districts, and from his habits much more familiarly 

 and commonly known and noticed than other birds equally 

 or even more abundant, but of less obtrusive or quieter habits. 

 Flitting about from bush to bush, and seating himself pertly on the 

 top spray, there he sits and " chats " or " clinks " till the pas- 

 senger comes too near, and then off he flies again, to perch again 

 a few yards further and repeat the same performance. The nest, 

 sometimes very neat and well-constructed, of moss and benty 

 grass, and lined with hair, feathers, fine grass-stalks, &c., is often 

 quite on the ground and with no bush near ; sometimes at the 

 foot of alow bush, or in the bush itself, but very near the ground. 

 The eg^s are five or six, of a pale blue ground, very sparingly 

 .freckled with dull reddish brown, and chiefly near the large end. 

 The nest is often hard to find, and especially when built among 

 longish herbage, or in or near a whin-bush. Fig. 16, plate 11. 



53. WHIN-CHAT. (Saxicola rubefra). 



Grass-chat, Furze-chat. Many of the birds last-named pass 

 the winter in England ; but only a few of the Whin-chats. This 

 is never so abundant a species as the last, and though with some 

 similar habits it has no urgent inclination to force us to notice it 

 by the incessant repetition of its note. The nest strongly resein 

 bles that of the Stone-chat. It is also usually placed on the 

 ground, and is fully as hard to find as that bird's. The eggs, five 

 or six of them, are of a uniform blueish green, very slightly 

 speckled or marked with dull-red. Fig. 17, plate II. 



54. WHEAT-EAR, (Saxicola cenanthe). 



Fallow-chat, White-rump, White-tail, Fallow-smick, Fallow- 

 finch, Chacker, Chackbird, Clodhopper, with some other quainter 

 names still, which I have noted down, and yet another or two 

 common to the VV heat-ear and Stone-chat, such as Stone-chacker. 

 A common bird enough here, and with some of the more obrioun 



