WHEATEAR ON SOUTH DOWNS 35 



for that purpose, adds the following remarks: "They 

 are first set up every year on St James's Day, the 

 25th of July, soon after which time they are caught 

 in numbers truly astonishing. . . . Observing that 

 all the birds which were caught in the proper 

 season had the same coloured plumage as the hen 

 bird, I made some inquiries respecting them of a 

 shepherd at East Bourn, who informed me that the 

 flight consisted chiefly of young birds, which arrived 

 in the greatest numbers when westerly wind pre- 

 vailed, and that they always came against the wind. 

 He told me that on the 15th and i6th of August 

 1792, he caught twenty-seven dozen with only a few 

 old birds amongst them ; but this is a small number 

 when compared with the almost incredible quantity 

 sometimes taken. A gentleman informed me that 

 his father's shepherd once caught eighty-four dozen 

 in a day." Even a greater number than this must 

 have fallen to the share of a shepherd remembered 

 by a friend of the late Mr M. A. Lower. This 

 man, after having filled a large bag and his wife's 

 apron with the game, was fain to take off his round 

 smock and to fasten the neck and sleeves of that 

 rustic garment by way of sack, which he filled 

 to repletion with his delicious victims (Lower, 

 Contributions to Literature, p. 153). It was for- 

 merly a common practice for wayfarers on coming 

 to a Wheatear trap to take out the bird and to leave 

 a penny as a quid pro quo. 



The late Rev. Leonard Blomefield (formerly 

 Jenyns), who died in September 1893, at the 

 advanced age of ninety-three, and whose Manual 



