SHEPHERDS AND WHEATEARS 137 



a hundred dozen ; so many that he could not thread 

 them on crow-quills in the usual manner, but took off 

 his round frock and made a sack of it to pop them 

 into, and ■ his wife did the same with her petticoat. 

 This must have been when there was a great flight. 

 Their numbers are now so decreased that some shep- 

 herds do not set up any coops, as it does not pay 

 for the trouble." 



This last statement describing the state of things 

 a century ago struck me as very curious when I first 

 read it ; that the birds had now decreased so much 

 that it was not worth while setting up coops, was 

 precisely what the shepherds had said when I asked 

 them why they had given up catching the wheatears. 

 But it is not the truth, or not the whole truth. For 

 about eighty years after Dudeney's days at Rotting- 

 dean, the shepherds in that neighbourhood and all 

 along the South Down range continued to catch 

 wheatears, and were glad to do so. There is one 

 old firm of poulterers in Brighton whose custom it 

 was to pay the shepherds for all the birds they sent 

 in at the end of the season. When pay-day arrived 

 the shepherds would come in, and a very substantial 

 dinner with plenty of beer would be served to them ; 

 and after the meal and toasts and songs every man 

 would be paid his money. At these yearly dinners, 

 wliich were continued down to about 1880, as many 

 as fifty shepherds have been known to attend. Yet 

 this firm could not have had more than a third 



