NATURAL HISTORY OF S 



state ; but reds' hite-thro.. 



&c. &c. .nig flights , 



been or r heard of, in a torpid Ut* 



yet can d,. in such troops, from year t* 



year t< _ iude the eyes of* thr curious and 



inq> jtn day to day discern f.iv iher 



.vn to abide our winters. b,- ^otvvith- 

 t my care, I saw nothing like a summer bird 

 and, what is more strange, riot one wheat-ear, 

 / abound so in the autumn as to be a con- 

 erquisite to the shepherds that take them , and 

 e to be seen to my knowledge all the winter 

 many parts of the south of England?- The 

 rt intelligent shepherds tell me that some few of these 

 birds appear on the downs in March, and then withdraw 

 eed probably in warrens and stone-quarries ; now and 

 : a nest is ploughed up in a fallow on the downs under 

 a furrow, but it is thought a rarity. At the time of wheat- 

 harvest they begin to be taken m great numbers ; are sent 

 for sale in vast quantities to Brighthelmstone and Tun- 

 bridge \ and appear at the tables of all the gentry that 

 entertain with any degree of elegance. About Muhatlmas 

 they retire and are seen no more till Mtrck. Though 

 these birds are, when in season, in g/eat plenty on the 

 south downs round Lewes, yet at East-Bourn, which is the 

 eastern extremity of those downs, they abound much more. 

 One thing is very remarkable, that though in the height 

 of the season so many hundred of dozens are taken, yet 

 they never are seen to flock ; and it is a rare thing to see 

 e than three or four at a time ; so that there must be 

 rpetual flitting and constant progressive succession. It 

 s not appear that any wheat-ears are taken to the 



1 Redstarts (Ruticilla phanicurus}, Black -caps (Sylvia atricaptlla}, and White- 

 throats (Sylvia syhia) go to North, Eastern, and Equatorial Africa to winter, the 

 last-named species reaching as far as Cape Colony. The Black-cap has also 

 egambia, and Lord Detainer* has recently found it wintering cm 

 the interior of British East Africa. The Nightingale (Daulias 

 l*K*ri) crrainly goes as fat as the forests of West Africa in winter, as Captain 

 Shelley practiced * specimen on the Gold Coast. [R. B. S.] 

 oi. i. p. S^fR- B. S.] 



