48 NATURAL HISTORY 



winter. Quails crowd to our southern coast, and are often 

 killed in numbers by people that go on purpose. 



Mr. Stillingfleet, in his Tracts, says that, " if the wheat- 

 ear (OEnanthe) 1 does not quit England, it certainly shifts 

 places ; for about harvest they are not to be found, where 



WHEAT EAR. 



there was before great plenty of them." This well accounts 

 for the vast quantities that are caught about that time on 

 the South Downs near Lewes, where they are esteemed a 

 delicacy. There have been shepherds, I have been credibly 



1 Saxicola cenanthe (Linn.) The popular name " wheatear " appears to 

 have been originally local and confined to the South Downs. Elsewhere 

 it is called " fallow- chat " and " white -tail." Willughby, referring to 

 this bird, calls it " the fallow-smick, in Sussex the wheatear, because 

 the time of wheat-harvest they wax very fat." Many other derivations 

 of the name, however, have been suggested, amongst others the follow- 

 ing is perhaps as plausible as any. Those who arc acquainted with 

 the wheatear, know that the basal half of the tail is white, and that as 

 the bird moves, this white patch is very conspicuous. "Wheat" may 

 easily be a corruption of " whit" or " white," and as regards the "ear," 

 if we affix the " e " instead of prefixing it, and insert a penultimate 

 letter, we have the substantive by which our Saxon forefathers would 

 have described that portion of the anatomy which is white. This view 

 receives some support from the spelling adopted by the earlier English 

 writers (cf. Chaucer's " Miller's Tale"), and Mr. Bennett has sug- 

 gested that " Hwitaers " may possibly have been its Saxon name. IP 

 France to this day the bird is called " cul-blanc." ED. 



