182 THE WHEATEAR. 



Comes the sweet note from flocks that seek, 

 From Hyperborean mountains bleak, 

 Our milder glens. But as they wind 

 Round oak or elm's deep-furrowed rind,— 

 Or to the spreading fir-tree wing 

 Alert their fluttering flight, and cling 

 Beneath the boughs, the foliage thread, 

 And, creeping to the topmost head, 

 From branch to branch all noiseless steal,— 

 The trees the tiny form conceal. 

 The back with ashy green bedight ; 

 The wings with sable barred, and white ; 

 The breast, pale yellow mixed with brown ; 

 And fringed with black the orange crown." 



Less notable as songsters, but contributing some pleasant 

 notes to Nature's grand choral harmony, are the Stone- 

 chats and their allies, which, taken as a whole, form a 

 tolerably large and not unimportant group. Most of these 

 birds frequent the stony places and open pastures, or 

 shrubby and wooded districts. One of these, well-known 

 on the downs of Sussex, is the bonny wheatear ; so called, 

 perhaps, from the resemblance of its notes to the syllables, 

 weet-jar. It visits us about March, and migrates to warmer 

 climes about November, though it quits the inland districts 

 as early as the middle of September. It builds its nest in 

 the crevices of walls, the recesses of deserted quarries, or 

 in the cavities of steep banks. Being a very dainty morsel, 

 it is much sought after by the Sussex shepherds ; who, 

 towards the end of July, cut snares for it in the green 

 turf, consisting of a couple of twisted horse-hair nooses. 

 This trap is protected by an upraised clod of turf ; afford- 

 ing a shelter which the timid wheatear seeks at the slights 

 est alarm — the shadow even of a passing cloud — and 

 accordingly plunges into the ambush and is caught. 



