350 SYLVIID.E. 



country, or perhaps even further to the northward, are then 

 pressing forward on their autumnal journey. Being at that 

 time fat and of excellent flavour, these periodical emigrants 

 are in great request as a delicacy among those who frequent 

 the many watering-places on that coast. 



The birds are chiefly supplied hy the shepherds, who set 

 traps for them on the downs over which their flocks graze. 

 The Wheatear trap is formed by cutting an oblong sod of 

 turf from the surface, about eight inches by eleven, and six 

 inches thick, which is taken up and laid in the contrary way 

 both as to surface and direction over the hole, thus forming 

 a hollow chamber beneath. Besides this chamber, two other 

 openings are also cut in the turf, about six inches wide and 

 of greater length, which lead into the chamber at opposite 

 ends, that the bird may run in under the turf through either 

 of them. A small straight stick, sharpened at both ends, 

 not very unlike a common match, but stouter, is fixed in an 

 upright position a little on one side of the middle of the 

 square chamber ; the stick supports two open running loops 

 of twisted horse-hair placed vertically across the line of 

 passage from either entrance to the opposite outlet, and the 

 bird attempting to run through is almost certain to get its 

 head into one of these loops and be caught by the neck : 

 upon the least alarm, even the shadow of a passing cloud, 

 the birds run beneath the clod and are taken. 



However inefficient these traps may appear to be from the 

 description, the success of the shepherds is very extraordi- 

 nary. One man and his lad can look after from five to seven 

 hundred of them. They are opened every year about St. 

 James's Day, July 25th, and are all in operation by August 

 1st. The birds arrive by hundreds, though not in flocks, in 

 daily succession for the next six or seven weeks, probably 

 depending on the distance northward at which they have 

 been reared. The season for catching is concluded about 

 the end of the third week in September, after which very 

 few birds are observed to pass. Pennant, more than a 

 century since, stated that the numbers snared about East- 

 bourne amounted annually to about 1,840 dozens, which were 



