r. 



Birds by Land and Sea 



tenderer little warbler conveys to the ear from the 

 safer shelter of wood or copse. 



If one could give to the robin a buffy white waist- 

 coat, draw a blue-grey coat over his olive-brown 

 back, and deepen the wings to black, he might, in 

 spite of the wheatear's slimmer build, counterfeit 

 the latter with some success. The same exquisite 

 sleekness of plumage is found in both ; the same 

 habit of drooping the wings ; the same sprightly 

 duckings of the head and flirtings of the tail ; the 

 same love of perching on some slight eminence, 

 be it clod, or stone, or post ; the same pugnacious 

 exclusiveness in chasing other birds, especially those 

 of their own kind, from the spot of which they 

 have taken prior possession. But, even if the 

 " let I tet!" of the robin could pass for the " Tad 

 tac ! " of the wheatear (a note common to all the 

 chats, and imitated by striking together two pebbles), 

 the first true wheatear which came along with flashing 

 white tail deeply barred with black at the extremity 

 would betray the counterfeit, and reveal the bird 

 which, from this, its most distinctive marking, our 

 forefathers named with Saxon directness hvitears y 

 since corrupted into the euphemistic " wheatear," 

 but really meaning " white rump." 



Despite such points of resemblance in form, 

 motion, and habit, which may serve to assimilate 

 two birds so diverse in their markings as the 

 robin and the wheatear, in other respects they 

 stand in the sharpest contrast. For, whilst the one 



