THE WHEAT EAR. 335 



it m'his net. Willoughby however cites the following case : 

 six or seven persons usually went in company to catch dotterels. 

 When they found the bird, they set their net in an advantageous 

 place ; and each of them holding a stone in either hand, they 

 got behind it, and striking the stones one against the other, roused 

 it from its natural sluggishness, and by degrees drove it into the 

 net. The more certain method of the gun has of late super- 

 seded both these artifices. 



THE WHEAT EAR. 



This bird visits England annually in the middle of March, 

 and leaves us in September. The females come first, about a 

 fortnight before the males ; and they continue to come till the 

 Middle of May. In some parts of England they are found in 

 vast plenty, and are much esteemed. About Eastbourne, in 

 Sussex, they are taken in snares made of horse-hair, placed be- 

 neath a long turf. Being very timid birds, the motion even of 

 a cloud, or the appearance of a hawk, will immediately drive 

 them into the traps. 



These traps are first set every year on St. James's day, the 

 twenty-fifth of July ; soon after which they are caught in aston- 

 ishing numbers, considering that they are not gregarious, and 

 that more than two or three are scarcely ever seen flying toge- 

 ther. The number annually ensnared in the district of East- 

 bourne alone, is said to amount to nearly two thousand dozen. 

 The birds caught are chiefly young ones, and they are invaria- 



