Anglesey 



land, but on the stony, rabbit-burrowed ground 

 nearer the coast. There is another bird still a 

 degree nearer civilization than the stonechat, namely, 

 the whinchat, which, by his note and gestures, will 

 just as strongly remind us of both wheatear and 

 stonechat, when we meet him in the cultivated lands 

 further down. 



Here are three birds with a pronounced family 

 likeness showing itself so strongly that we cannot 

 look at or listen to one of them without being 

 reminded of the others, all subsisting on the same 

 kind of food, but distinguished by the fact that the 

 wheatear makes his abode in stony, desert places, the 

 stonechat on gorse-covered commons, and the 

 whinchat generally in the fields. One is naturally 

 prompted to ask how these three birds came to show 

 such a close physical and mental likeness, unless they 

 were derived from a common form. In such a case 

 what kind of land did that common form inhabit ? 

 Was the originally still greater similarity of these 

 three birds the cause of their being forced to seek 

 different habitats when competition for the same food 

 became too keen in the narrower area of a common 

 habitat? Did life under different conditions cause 

 the line of development to diverge so as now to 

 present us with three different birds, each with its 

 distinctive habitat f 



Although there is a general resemblance in the 

 markings of these three birds, the stonechat is 

 decidedly the most striking in his aspect. His 



225 Q 



