PEECHING BIRDS. 165 



delicious odour. The black, white, and brown of 

 this little bird contrast beautifully with the colour 

 of the furze, as he sits on the topmost and luxuri- 

 ant branch, ever and anon flinging himself a few 

 feet into the air, hovering over the bushes, flitting 

 now here, now there, and chaunting his little song, 

 soft and persuasive, but low. It sings, too, till 

 you are almost close upon it, and then drops so 

 perpendicularly, that you imagine you have only 

 to stoop, lift the side branch, and pick it up. But 

 it glides through the bushes like magic, and 

 appears hovering and singing again, foiling all 

 attempts at a capture." 



The WHIN CHAT is similar in its haunts and 

 habits to the preceding birds; but there is this 

 difference, the whin chats, almost to a bird, depart 

 in autumn, to go farther south. 



The WHEATEAR, or fallow-chat, (as it is some- 

 times called,) is a summer migrant, and by far the 

 most abundant as well as largest of its kind. It 

 ranges all over these islands, being common every- 

 where on open downs and in uninclosed districts. 

 It perches on clods, and especially on stones, 

 beneath which it forms its nest, as well as in 

 rabbit-burrows, and under the clods in fallow fields. 

 Hence its names of fallow-chat, wheatear, and 

 clod-hopper. These birds love a dripping sky and 

 misty atmosphere; for their principal food is 



