NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 61 



state ; but redstarts, nightingales, white-throats, black-caps, 1 

 &c. &c., are very ill provided for long flights ; have never 

 been once found, as I ever heard of, in a torpid state, and 

 yet can never be supposed, in such troops, from year to 

 year to dodge and elude the eyes of the curious and 

 inquisitive, which from day to day discern the other small 

 birds that are known to abide our winters. But, notwith- 

 standing all my care, I saw nothing like a summer bird 

 of passage ; and, what is more strange, not one wheat-ear, 

 though they abound so in the autumn as to be a con- 

 siderable perquisite to the shepherds that take them ; and 

 though many are to be seen to my knowledge all the winter 

 through in many parts of the south of England? The 

 most intelligent shepherds tell me that some few of these 

 birds appear on the downs in March, and then withdraw 

 to breed probably in warrens and stone-quarries ; now and 

 then 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 in 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 Michaelmas 

 they retire and are seen no more till March. Though 

 these birds are, when in season, in great 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 

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

 a perpetual flitting and constant progressive succession. It 

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



1 Redstarts (Ruticilla phcsnicurus], Black -caps (Sylvia atricapilla), and White- 

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

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

 been found in Senegambia, and Lord Delamere has recently found it wintering on 

 the Athi River in the interior of British East Africa. The Nightingale (Daulias 

 luscinia) certainly goes as far as the forests of West Africa in winter, as Captain 

 Shelley procured a specimen on the Gold Coast. [R. B. S.] 

 2 See note, vol. i. p. 52. [R. B. S.] 



