38 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
great plenty of them/' This well accounts for the vast quanti- 
ties that are caught about that time 
on the south downs near Lewes, where 
they are esteemed a delicacy. There 
have been shepherds, I have been 
credibly informed, that have made 
many pounds in a season by catching 
them in traps. And though such 
multitudes are taken, I never saw (and wheatear. 
I am well acquainted with those parts) above two or three at a 
time : for they are never gregarious. They may perhaps migrate 
in general ; and, for that purpose, draw towards the coast 
of Sussex in autumn: but that they do not all withdraw 
I am sure ; because I see a few stragglers in many counties, 
at all times of the year, especially about warrens and stone 
quarries.* 
I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gentlemen of 
the navy : but have written to a friend, who was a sea-chaplain 
in the late war, desiring him to look into his minutes, with re- 
spect to birds that settled on their rigging during their voyage 
up or down the channel. What Hasselquist says on that subject 
is remarkable: there were little short-winged birds frequently 
coming on board his ship all the way from our channel quite up 
to the Levant, especially before squally weather.f 
What you suggest, with regard to Spain, is highly probable. 
* By far the great majority of fallow-chats or " wheatears" {saxicola oenanthe)^ migrate. Mr. 
White is perfectly correct in saying that they never flock, though this has been by some disputed ; 
many may often be seen in autumn collected about one spot, but they never fly together. — Eo. 
t In the seasons of migration, nothing is more common, in the Channel and German Ocean, 
han for our various short-winged birds of passage to settle on the rigging of vessels, a fact 
which no doubt must influence in some slight degree their distribation, species being'thus occa- 
sionally brought to our shores which otherwise would not have landed here, and others, perhaps 
being carried away far to sea. I once knew as many as sixteen different kinds (in all about a 
hundred and fifty individuals) to alight on a single trading smack, during its voyage to Aberdeen 
and back to London, in the month of September. There were nine or ten of the tiny golden- 
crowned kinglets {regulus auricapillus) y the smallest of British birds, which appeared to have 
arrived fram the north-east, having probably winged their way from Norway. These were greatly 
exhausted, and suff'ered themselves to be taken without difficulty. An astonishingly extensive 
migration of the same diminutive bird is related by Mr. Selby. See his " British Ornithology,^^ in 
loco- For its Size even, this species is comparatively feeble upon the wing, and can only migrate 
when borne along by a favourable gale of wind. The thousands which that gentleman observed to 
arrive on the Northumbrian coast, he states to have been *' after a very severe gale, with thick 
fog, from the north-east (but veering towards its conclusion to the east and south of east) and 
he adds that " many of them were so fatigued by the length of their flight, or perhaps by the 
unfavourable shift of wind, as to be unable to rise again from the ground, and great numbers were 
in consequence caught or destroyed. This flight," he continues, " must have been immense in 
quantity, as its extent was traced through the whole length of the coasts of Northumberland and 
Durham." — En 
