WHEATEAR ON SOUTH DOWNS 31 



goes on to say, the soldiers did taste with so much 

 amazement, delight, and jollity, that the squire 

 upstairs had ample time to burn all the papers that 

 would compromise him ; and when Lieut. Hopkins, 

 full of Wheatear pie, came to search the house, 

 there was not so much treasonable matter found as 

 could have brought a mouse within the perils of a 

 prcBmunire. At the Restoration, the lord of the 

 manor became Sir William Wilson, of Eastbourne, 

 a dignity well earned by his devotion to the royal 

 cause ; but the chronicle goes on to hint that 

 Charles II. was passionately fond of Wheatears, 

 and that possibly the liberality of the squire in 

 supplying his Majesty's table with these delicacies 

 may have had something to do with the creation of 

 the baronetcy. 



Gilbert White, in one of his letters to Pennant, 

 wrote : " Some Wheatears continue with us the 

 winter through ; " but Sir William Jardine, in a foot- 

 note to his edition of White's Selborne, conjectured 

 that on this point he was mistaken. He perhaps 

 thought that some had remained throughout the 

 winter, from having seen them in March on their 

 earliest arrival in spring. Writing to Daines 

 Barrington in December 1773 (Letter xvii.), and 

 describing a journey over the downs from Selborne 

 in Hants to Ringmer in Sussex, he remarked : — 



" Notwithstanding all my care, I saw nothing 

 like a summer bird of passage ; and, what is more 

 strange, not one Wheatear, though they abound so 

 in the autumn as to be a considerable perquisite to 

 the shepherds that take them ; and though many 



