THE WHITETAIL, OR WHEATEAB. 427 



run about, but not before they become accustomed to their 

 new food and habitation, as if not well tended at first, they 

 generally die. They can seldom be tamed. 



Food. In their natural state, they eat all kinds of small 

 beetles and flies, which they catch alive. "When taken, they 

 must be oifered an abundance of ants' eggs and meal worms, 

 that they may eat plentifully ; otherwise they generally die, 

 and, what is most extraordinary, of diarrhoea, even though they 

 have eaten nothing of the common house food. After some 

 time, they are fed with Nightingale's food, and occasionally 

 with bread soaked in milk. In this manner they may be kept 

 two years. 



Breeding. Their nest, made of hay and feathers, is gene- 

 rally fixed in the crevices of stone quarries ; also in holes of 

 river banks, heaps of stones, or a deserted mole-hill. The 

 female lays five or six greenish white eggs. The young are 

 taken when half fledged, and fed on ants' eggs, and bread 

 soaked in milk. 



Mode of Taking. In some spot which they frequent, stakes 

 are to driven into the ground, and covered as well as all 

 stones and eminences near with bird lime ; the birds may 

 then be driven towards them. 



Attractive Qualities. Only very determined amateurs would 

 take the trouble of taming a full-grown Wheatear. I have 

 one, which, by means of fresh ants' eggs, has been accustomed 

 to range the room. Its appearance is handsome, its motions 

 active ; it frequently bends its body, and spreads out its fine 

 tail. Its song also is not unpleasant, but is interrupted in the 

 midst by a sort of scream. 



SWEET'S ACCOUNT. " A very lively and interesting species, 

 which arrives in this country in March, and generally leaves it in 

 September or October, though sometimes they stay till the 

 middle of November. I observed a pair on the 17th of November 

 last, near the gravel-pit in Hyde Park, which were quite lively, 

 id flying about after the insects, as brisk as if it had been the 

 middle of summer ; from their appearance, I should suppose they 

 had been about there for some time, as they were not at all shy, 

 but would allow me to come within three yards of them, so that 

 they might have been easily caught in a trap, if I had wished for 

 them ; but being previously in possession of a pair, I did not 

 trouble myself about them. 



" In a wild state, these birds are chiefly to be found on hills or 



