HARRIERS — WHEA TEAR — CHA TS 



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osnanthe), a bird not only of the fields but of the moor and the seashore, and also 

 of the mountains, where it ranges higher than the tree-line in southern Europe. 

 It is found all over Europe, and northern Asia and north-east America, being 

 nearly circumpolar in its distribution. From Europe it migrates to Senegambia 

 and Abyssinia, and in Asia its winter-quarters are in the north-western Himalaya 

 and Persia. The wheatear is strong, active, and wary, and by no means a lover 

 of a quiet life with its fellows ; it has a rolling, jerky sort of gait, nods as it sits on 

 stones or any small elevation, and escapes from every bird-of-prey into the nearest 







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A COCK STONECHAT. 



hiding-place. Its song is a twittering, varied with a few specimens of mimicry 

 of the shorter trills of other birds, and its call chack-chack. It sings on the 

 wing as well as when perching, and the low dipping flight rarely rises higher 

 than forty feet. It lives on insects, worms, and snails, and nests in rocky clefts and 

 stone-heaps, even in holes in the ground, in peat-stacks, holes in walls, and 

 other hiding-places. 



The handsome stonechat (Pratincola rubicola), which lives on or 

 near the ground, and is seldom seen on trees larger than a hawthorn, 

 is distributed somewhat locally over central and southern Europe, being found in 

 Spain and Portugal, and ranging from the British Isles to the Petchora Valley, 

 where its place is taken by P. ma lira, distinguished by its black axillaries. In the 

 beginning of April it arrives in northern Europe from its winter - quarters in 



Stonechat. 



