26



Mr. W. E. Teschemaker,



been contributing for some time past to our contemporary, Bird

Notes, an extremely interesting series of notes on the Birds of

Gambia, and amongst these notes (Vol. VIII. p. 294) may be found

the following reference:— 11 Whinchats are common in Gambia from

about November to March. They are found in pairs or singly in the

old corn-fields and other open spaces; as active restless little birds

here as they are at home, flitting from bush to bush or perching on

the tall stalks which remain standing here and there about the

fields.’’ Hearing' that Dr. Hopkinson was home on leave, I ven¬

tured to bombard him with various queries on this subject, which

with great good nature he endeavoured to answer, as follows:—

“ I have occasionally seen an odd one or two as late as May, but I

am pretty sure they do not breed there. Most of those one

sees are in young plumage, more sandy than the adults. I have

never noticed specially on what they fed, but in West Africa there is

generally every possible variety of insect-food. By corn-fields ’

please understand 1 Guinea-corn ’ after the harvest—a very different

thing to our corn-fields : dry sandy tracts covered with long dry

stalks of the Guinea-corn (a millet) from which the heads have been

cut. Last year, when I stayed till the rains, the first time that I

saw Whinchats was in the early part of November ; I remember

seeing one or two before the arrival of the Wagtails and making a

note of it.” I particularly enquired whether any males had been

heard to sing but evidently Dr. Hopkinson does not share my view

that all our migrants probably sing in their winter areas for he

adds: “I have never heal’d a Whinchat sing in the Gambia; a few

calls, nothing more. I really cannot believe that Nightingales at all

events do sing abroad. Their song must have been noticed by

someone, if they did.”


Here then we have a peep at the Whinchat flitting from stem

to stem of the Guinea-corn and we may note that it does not reach

the Gambia until November though it crosses the Straits of

Gibraltar in September (Irby), thus showing us how leisurely a

journey the autumnal migration of this (and many other) species is.

Howard Saunders’ statement that it leaves us in October is surely an

error. Though I am too far west to see it frequently as a migrant,

on those occasions which I have noted it has always been much



