WHEATEAR. 59 



munication of great interest made to the late Mr. Blencowe, 

 of the Hookj near Chailey, speaking of a time when, in 1883, 

 he was head shepherd on Westside Farm, near Brighton, 

 states thus: — "The farm extending along the seacoast, I 

 caught great numbers of Wheatears during the season for 

 taking them, which lasts from the middle of July to the end 

 of August. The most I ever caught in one day was thirteen 

 dozen, but we thought it a good day if we caught three or 

 four dozen. We sold them to a poulterer at Brighton, who 

 took all we could catch in a season at I8d. a dozen. ' From 

 what I have heard from old shepherds, it cannot be doubted 

 that they were caught in much greater numbers a century 

 ago than of late. I have heard them speak of an immense 

 number being taken in one day by a shepherd at East Dean, 

 near Beachy Head. I think they said he took nearly a 

 hundred dozen, so many that they could not thread them on 

 crow-quills, in the usual manner, but he took ofif his round 

 frock and made a sack of it to put them into, and his wife 

 did the same with her petticoat. This must have happened 

 when there was a great flight. Their numbers now are so 

 decreased that some shepherds do not set up any coops, as it 

 does not pay for the trouble." 



Mr. Mark Antony Lower, in his ' Glimpses of our 'Sussex 

 Ancestors,-" p. 96, gives the following amusing colloquy 

 between two old shepherds : — " One was telling the other 

 how he had known the time when in a single year from 

 forty to fifty thousand sheep had been washed near the spot 

 where they were sitting. 'And now,' he exclaimed, 'there 

 be none ! ... As to birding,' he continued, in a still more 

 doleful tone, ' birding is now all auver ; why I used to make 

 quite a harvest of my birds ; twelve pound a year I have 

 made of ray birds, and one year I made fourteen pound eight 

 shillings. We sent them, you see, to Burthemson (Bright, 

 helmstone — Brighton), and otherwhile we catchcd so many 



