SYLVIADJE. 95 



near St. Audries and Quantock's Head. In my own 

 immediate neighbourhood, and throughout the Vale, 

 it is only an accidental visitor, an occasional strag- 

 gler making its appearance for a short time about 

 the migrating seasons. 



It is a very gay lively bird, having something of 

 the manners of the two last-described species, except 

 that, instead of bushes and hedge-rows, it delights 

 in grassy sheep-walks or sandy rabbit-warrens, in- 

 terspersed with large stones and rocks ; but like 

 them it delights in placing itself in conspicuous 

 situations on a big stone or rock, or even a mole- 

 hill. 



The food of the Wheatear consists almost entirely 

 of different sorts of insects and their larvae, such as 

 flies, grasshoppers and beetles. 



The nest is placed in openings and crevices in 

 rocks, or in loosely built stone walls, and occasion- 

 ally in a rabbit-hole : it is made of moss and 

 grass, intermixed with wool, and lined with wool 

 or hair. 



The Wheatear may, perhaps more than any other 

 bird, be taken as an example of the material change 

 which takes place in the plumage immediately after 

 the autumnal moult, the broad edgings of the 

 feathers at that time entirely altering the appearance 

 of the bird. 



The adult Wheatear has the beak black; irides 

 dark brown ; and on its arrival here, and during the 



