28 WHINCHAT. 
on the ground, or at most a few inches above it, among the stems 
of a small bush, or in coarse herbage and thick meadow-grass. 
It is a loose structure of dry grass and moss, with a lining of finer 
materials; the eggs, usually 6 in number, being greenish-blue, 
sometimes dotted or zoned with rust-colour : measurements, “72 by 
‘6 in. Two broods are reared in the season. The call note is a 
sharp #é-tick, and the bird has also an agreeable song, uttered on the 
wing or while sitting on some low branch, accompanied by a 
fanning movement of the tail. Although, like the Stonechat, it 
frequents heaths and commons, the two species are seldom abundant 
in the same neighbourhood ; and the Whinchat exhibits a partiality 
for pastures, whence the bird’s local name of ‘Grass-chat.’ Its 
food consists of beetles, flies, and other insects—often sought for 
late in the evening; worms, especially the wire-worm, and small 
mollusks. It roosts on the ground. 
The adult male has the lores, ear-coverts and cheeks dark brown; 
a clear white streak above the eye ; crown and upper parts mottled 
with about equal proportions of sandy-buff and dark brown, more 
rufous on tail-coverts; base of tail white (except the two central 
feathers, which are dark brown), terminal-half dark brown, tipped 
and margined with buff; wing brown, the upper part showing:a con- 
spicuous white patch contrasted against a nearly black outer portion 
of the coverts ; a smaller white patch on spurious wing; bastard 
primary smaller than in the Stonechat ; under parts buff, turning to 
bright fawn-colour on the breast and throat ; chin white, with a streak 
of the same running below the blackish cheeks to the sides of the 
neck. Bill black (stouter than in the Stonechat), legs and feet 
black. Length 5°25 in. ; wing to the end of the 3rd and longest 
primary 3 in. 
The female is duller in colour; the speculum smaller ; the eye- 
streak buff; the upper breast slightly spotted. The young have the 
feathers margined with rufous and buff; the breast much more spotted 
than in the female, which otherwise they resemble. By September 
the young males have the wing-patches well defined. 
In autumn the Whinchat assumes a duller plumage, leading to 
confusion with the Stonechat ; and to this, perhaps, may be ascribed 
the records of the occurrence of the former in winter in the British 
Islands. In spring, according to Meves and other observers, it 
not only loses the paler tips of the feathers by abrasion, but has a 
distinct moult : an exception to the rule among the Zurdine. White 
and pied varieties of this bird have been obtained. 
