70 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 



during that season, the young of the year appearing 

 to migrate to some other locality. 



The whinchat is a summer visitor with us, as else- 

 where, but during the few months of its residence it 

 is more abundantly distributed than the stonechat. It 

 frequents the same localities, but is not so exclusively 

 confined to the open forest or moorland ; I have often 

 met with it in pasture fields. Its habits are almost 

 precisely those of the stonechat, though it shows more 

 fearlessness, perching on the bushes of furze or heath, 

 or sometimes on the hedges by the roadside. Its ordi- 

 nary call is scarcely so stony in sound as the former, 

 whilst its song is more musical ; and I have heard it 

 singing very sweetly while it hovered over a bush 

 before perching, its notes much resembling those of the 

 skylark. 



The nests of both species are placed in similar situa- 

 tions at the foot of a bush of furze, or gorse, as it is 

 called locally ; they are very difficult to find, and when 

 discovered are by no means easily obtained from the 

 midst of the natural chevaux de frise that surround 

 them. The difficulty of finding that of the whinchat is 

 greatly increased by the covered entrance leading to it, 

 and I have often searched in vain when I felt sure, from 

 the presence of the birds, that the nest was close at 

 hand. 



That graceful and chastely-coloured bird, the Wheatear 

 (S. (Enanthe), is a regular summer visitor, but is confined 

 to two or three spots viz., Oxton Warren and Boughton 

 Brake (both of them being rabbit warrens sparsely 

 covered with furze bushes), and occasionally on that part 

 of the forest adjacent to the toll-bar on the outskirts of 

 the village. 



