THROUGH THE YEAR 171 



THE STONECHAT 



The wren of the woodlands is not more faithful 

 to its home than the stonechat of the coast. The 

 stonechat, as I first knew the bird, seemed to me a 

 regular migrant. Spring after spring a pair of stone- 

 chats appeared at the corner of a furze common. 

 They brought off a brood of young, though I was 

 never able to find their nest in the thickets, and they 

 disappeared in the autumn with the redstarts and 

 all the regular birds of passage. This pair of stone- 

 chats was not content with one haunt for the whole 

 year, but it seems to be quite otherwise with the 

 stonechats by the sea. 



Those young stonechats which are reared by the 

 sea may migrate, at any rate disperse, from their 

 native cliffs and commons ; indeed, many of them 

 clearly leave, for winter often finds only the old 

 pairs settled in the same spots. But these last will 

 live year in and year out on the same patch of wind- 

 swept, barren-looking ground. The wheatear comes 

 and goes, the whinchat comes and goes, but the 

 seaside stonechat needs no change of food or clime. 

 Finches every one of them redbreasts, thrushes, 

 blackbirds, starlings, titmice, perhaps even hedge 

 sparrows, are vagrants compared with the coast 

 stonechat. One cannot go on chance to a certain 

 field or patch of bushes or garden and say with 

 absolute confidence, " I can show you a pair of hedge 

 sparrows there which have been about the spot this 

 whole year and never leave it." One can go on 



