WHEATEAR. 281 
about Hastbourne amounted annually to about 1840 dozen. 
It is not unusual, however, for a shepherd and his lad to 
look after from five hundred to seven hundred of these 
traps. They are opened every year about St. James’s 
Day, the 25th of July, and are all in operation by the 1st 
of August. The birds arrive by hundreds in daily suc- 
cession, but not in flocks, for the next six or seven weeks, 
probably depending on the distance northward at which 
they have been reared. The season for catching is con- 
cluded about the end of the third week in September, after 
which very few birds are observed to pass. Stragglers are 
occasionally seen later in the year. Mr. Sweet ‘observed 
a pair on the 17th of November 1822, near the gravel-pit 
im Hyde Park, which were quite lively, and flying about 
after insects as brisk as if it had been the middle of 
summer,” 
The diffusion of the Wheatear during summer over Eng- 
land, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland is general ; it visits also 
the Hebrides, and the islands of Orkney and Shetland. It 
arrives in Denmark and Sweden about the middle of 
April; Mr. Hewitson saw numbers in Norway ; and Lin- 
neus observed it in Lapland. The extreme northern range 
of this apparently delicate bird is very extensive. It visits 
the Faroe Islands and Iceland. Captain Sabine, in his 
Memoir on the Birds of Greenland, says, “‘'This species 
was not seen on the shores of Greenland, on which we 
landed; but on our return homewards in October 1818, off 
Cape Farewell, a few were seen at a distance from the 
land, doubtless on their passage southward. In our out- 
ward voyage, in May, we also met with them in latitude 
60° N. and longitude 13° W., then most probably migrat- 
ing northward.” In high latitudes, this little bird does 
not breed till June; and it has been seen on the shores of 
