336 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
Charnwood Forest,’ Mr. Babington says:— ‘‘On Strawberry 
Hill, near Sharpley, in the summer of 1840, I observed three or 
four flying about among the rocks, and had a specimen brought 
me from the same place a few years previously.” Harley states 
that this bird is sparingly met with in the Forest of Charnwood, 
and affects the uncultivated waste lands, intersected by rough 
stone walls, lying over against the village of Whitwick, where it 
breeds. ‘As autumn draws on, the old birds with their young 
leave the bleak hills, and retire to the enclosures abutting thereon, 
where they feed on the fruit of the wild brier, elder, &c., shortly 
afterwards disappearing for the winter.” Mr. Macaulay has re- 
corded one shot in May, 1871, in Gumley Wood, and now in the 
collection of the Rev. A. Matthews, and another at Noseley, 1880. 
I saw one which was shot between Syston and Queniborough 
towards the end of 1882, and Mr. H.S. Davenport shot a fine male 
at Cold Overton on October 2nd, 1884. 
Saxicola wnanthe, Naum. Wheatear, “ Fallow-chat.” — A 
summer migrant, generally distributed, and breeding. I have 
seen the bird at Aylestone more than once, and Mr. A. W. Evans 
shot two in autumnal plumage in the Abbey meadow in the 
autumn of 1888. Harley remarks that “the first to arrive are 
males, which haunt the plough-lands for a few days, and then 
apparently betake themselves to the desolate hills of Bradgate 
and the rocky summits of Bardon and Markfield. There they 
are to be found the summer through.” He adds:—‘‘ We once 
met with the nest in the vicinity of Bardon. In turning aside 
suddenly to examine the fronds of some plants that were growing 
in great luxuriance on a ditch-bank, surmounted by an irregular 
stone fence, composed of boulders and large blocks of loose 
granite, or porphyry, we disturbed a female Wheatear, whose 
nest we found had been snugly built between the chinks of two 
large stones, guarded on all sides by large masses of the same 
materials. The structure of the nest was bulky and loosely 
made. It was mainly composed of fibrous twigs, green moss, 
tender leaves of dry grass, and lined with hair, wool, and some 
small feathers, and contained six eggs.” The female Wheatear 
endeavoured, by feigning lameness, to draw his attention from the 
nest. Mr. H. 8S. Davenport writes :—‘‘In May, 1875, I found a 
Wheatear’s nest with five eggs down a drain-pipe on the turnpike 
road at Skeffington.” 
