166 BRITISH LAND BIRDS. 



earth-worms, though they also take insects of 

 various kinds. In the north, the wheatear is 

 generally found on heaps of stones by ruins, or 

 among the tombstones in burial grounds ; and its 

 haunts have got it an ill name with the Scotch. 

 They call it the " clacheran ;" and the noise which 

 it makes when alarmed, being not unlike that of 

 breaking stones with a hammer, the superstitious 

 ignorant fancy it is busy breaking the stones that 

 are to cover their bones. Hence, the poor birds 

 get killed and persecuted, and to destroy their 

 eggs is thought a good work. 



In the south, the wheatear is highly esteemed as 

 a bonne-bouche for the table ; and when they 

 collect in numbers on the southern downs, which 

 they do about the middle of July, they are caught 

 in horse-hair nooses and traps in vast numbers. 

 At that time they are very fat, and of exquisite 

 flavour. The shepherds supply them abundantly, 

 placing traps for them in the turf of the downs, 

 over which their flocks graze. The number of 

 them taken every autumn, in the county of Sussex 

 alone, is very extraordinary, and it is customary to 

 dress them by dozens at the inns of the numerous 

 watering-places on the Sussex coast. 



The wheatear is a handsome bird ; its colours 

 being bluish-gray and black, the throat and rump 

 whitish, and the breast of a buff-orange. 



