﻿3 2 Birds 



of the slight amount of fruit it devours, consequently it is an all- 

 round beneficial species. The sexes are similar in colouring ; the 

 female differs only in having the rust-red on the head duller and 

 that on the throat paler than the male. 



WHEATEAE. (PL XIV.) 



Saxicola oenanthe. 



This bird is one of the earliest of our spring migrants, arriving 

 in this country from its winter quarters in Northern Africa about 

 the middle of March and departing in September. The favourite 

 haunts of the Wheatear are open downs, warrens, uncultivated 

 stony ground, and mountain-sides. The nest is frequently placed 

 in a rabbit-burrow, in a stone-heap or crevice in an old wall ; but 

 peat-stacks on moorlands and similar retreats are frequently 

 selected. Its nest is rather large, and loosely constructed of dry 

 grasses, lined with rabbit's fur, hair and feathers. The eggs vary 

 from five to seven in number, and are of a very pale glaucous- 

 blue, on rare occasions very finely spotted with purplish over the 

 larger end. 



As the food of this bird is chiefly insectivorous, with the 

 addition of small snails, it is a useful bird to the farmer. It may 

 often be seen capturing insects on the wing, and it is similar in 

 its actions to the spotted flycatcher. 



The male is grey on the crown, neck, and back, white on the 

 rump, the central pair of tail-feathers being black, the rest white, 

 on the basal portion broadly tipped with black ; the forehead, eye- 

 stripe, and under-parts white ; the wings chiefly black ; bill, legs 

 and feet black. The female has the ear-coverts brown (black in 

 the male), back also brown, and the under-parts buff. 



GAEDEN-WAEBLEE. (PL XV.) 

 Sylvia hortensis. 



The Garden Warbler is a summer migrant, usually arriving in 

 tnis country from its winter quarters in South Africa during the 

 first week of May, and leaving at the end of September or early 

 in October. It is widely though locally distributed over the 

 greater part of England, becoming rarer in the west ; fairly 



