STONECHAT. WHINCHAT. 43 



reddish breast contrasting with the golden glories of the 

 broom, in a manner which at once displays its beauish pre- 

 tensions. 



Restless and active as are all this family, perhaps the stone - 

 chat is the most so. Indolence cannot be laid to his charge, 

 as he is ever flitting from bush to bush, uttering his monoto- 

 nous clicking 



" "Where scarce the foxglove peeps, or thistles beard, 

 The restless stonechat all day long is heard." 



Thus Wordsworth, describing the stonechats of Cumberland, 

 has described our own. Occasionally, during the breeding 

 season, we hear the short and hurried song of the stonechat, 

 uttered when hovering over the bush where the female is 

 incubating. 

 Indigenous. 



SPECIES 40 THE WHINCHAT. 



Saxicola rubetra. Linn. 

 Traquet tarier. Temm. 



Stonechat. Furzechatter. 



THE WHINCHAT resembles the wheatear in being a summer 

 visitant to our shores, and occurs in much more limited num- 

 bers than either of the preceding species. 



To a casual observer it is almost similar to the stonechat 

 in its marking ; but it may at once be distinguished by the 

 white streak over the eye. Resembling that bird also in its 

 choice of situation, it resembles the wheatear in many of its 

 habits. Like that species, the whinchat possesses the habit of 

 preceding any intruder on its territory, flitting in a like man- 

 ner from twig to twig ; and with the same impatient jerking 

 of the tail, and repeated " u-teek, u-teek," it endeavours 

 to decoy you from its nest. During the season of incubation 

 the whinchat is observed constantly hovering over the bush 

 where the female is brooding, and beguiles her care with its 

 cheerful and hurried song. Occasionally singing when perched 

 on a twig, it will spring hurriedly into the air, and, flitting 

 over the bush, sing in a furious manner, or, as a countryman 

 once observed of it, " Like a trooper." 



Among the most amusing of its habits are its sallies into 

 the air after whatever insects may happen to pass close by it ; 

 in all of which endeavours it is usually successful. Very little 

 difference is exhibited between its eggs and those of the stone- 

 chat, those of the latter being more spotted at the end. 



Habitat Southern Europe. 



