172 WILD BIRDS 



chance to a certain bit of sea coast common or broken 

 cliff and be sure to see a pair of stonechats. The 

 weather does not matter. Mild or frosty, still or 

 boisterous, the stonechats are to be seen on their 

 chosen bit of ground of a few acres. 



Perhaps they are not very attractive little birds 

 at this season till one comes to know them well and 

 watch them closely ; but then they may become 

 favourites. I have not heard the stonechat give the 

 smallest scrap of its petty but pretty song in 

 winter. I have watched him alike on dazzling bright 

 winter mornings and on dull days, and on both he 

 has been silent. I heard the poor titter of the 

 common bunting by the seashore one grey afternoon, 

 and a song-thrush sang blithely in the sun from an 

 evergreen close to the beach ; but not a sound came 

 from the stonechats. 



The stonechat 's charm at this season is in its very 

 sprightly carriage and quick, lively action. Often, 

 watching stonechats by the sea, their name has 

 not seemed to me so happy as once I thought it. The 

 stonechat is not seen on a stone so often as to justify 

 the name. Its favourite perch in its sea-common 

 haunts is a low bush such as furze or dwarf furze 

 a foot or eighteen inches high or a small hump on 

 the ground, clod of earth or even a wormcast. 



When perched on a bush three or four feet higher, 

 or on a post by the beach, it will often glide to the 

 ground in the exact manner of a shrike gliding down 

 from the roadside hedge to seize an insect in the grass. 

 I do not know of any other English birds that have 



