ACROSS THE FIELDS. 



THE Stone-Chat or Wheatear is a European bird that is represented 

 in the fauna we have under consideration, in Labrador and in the 

 Province of Quebec, Canada. It has been recorded as an accidental 

 straggler in Nova Scotia, Maine, Long Island, and New Orleans Louisiana. 



,,„ The birds are about six inches and a quarter lone. Their 



Wheatear. ... , i i i i ■ , • i i i 



saxicoia oenanthe (Linn ) prGvailing colors are biacK, white, and gray, in sharply de- 

 fined areas. The upper parts are light grayish, becoming 

 white on the forehead, rump, and the region above the roots of the tail. There 

 is also a white stripe above the eye. The sides of the face and the wings are 

 black, as is the terminal third of the tail. The rest of the tail and the under parts 

 are white, the latter suffused on the breast with buff. The female is similar 

 but the colors are more obscure, the black areas being dusky and the white 

 parts suffused with buff. 



In winter both the adult and immature birds are plain brown above,, 

 except the rump and basal portion of the tail, which are white. The wing 

 feathers are dusky in the male and grayish in the female, edged with light 

 reddish brown. The black of the tail is replaced by dusky and tipped with 

 light buff. The lower parts are obscure brownish buff, darkest on the breast 

 and chest. 



The nest is placed on the ground among rocks and stones ; it is built of 



grasses, moss, and other plant fibres, and lined with finer material and feathers. 



The eggs are pale greenish blue, unmarked, and vary from three to 



seven in number. They are more than four fifths of an inch long, and about 



three fifths of an inch in their other diameter. 



The Brown Thrasher is of all our smaller birds perhaps the most notice- 

 able. Frequenting the edges of the woodland, open fields, and hedgerows, 

 his alert movements, brilliant vocal power, and reddish brown coat alike at- 

 tract the eye and ear. 



