16 WHINCHAT 
mountains, where they fly from post to post along the great 
drystone walls which cross them, or lower down, utter their 
hard clicking note from the high earthen fences of the 
pastures, Although, as I have indicated, there is no 
month, and indeed no date during any month of the summer, 
when in suitable localities a bird or two may not be seen, 
I am convinced that comparatively few breed in Man, and 
I have myself but very rarely seen one that appeared from 
its actions to be in the neighbourhood of its nest. 
The Wheatear is one of Ny shiaght cadlagyn, ‘ the seven 
sleepers’ of Manx folk-lore, which were supposed to 
hibernate. 
Records as above indicated are frequent in the Migration 
Reports. 
Although, from the nature of its haunts, a local bird in 
most districts, the Wheatear has a wide distribution in the 
British Isles, and it is a summer inhabitant of many of 
the most remote of them, as St. Kilda and North Rona, 
and is often the most noticeable of land-birds on such 
desolate spots. It is found on the fells and sand-hills of 
north-western England, on the hills, headlands, and islands 
of Carnarvonshire, and on Anglesea, is abundant in Kirk- 
cudbrightshire, and a regular summer resident in northern 
Ireland. 
PRATINCOLA RUBETRA (Uinn.). WHINCHAT. 
On 27th April 1897 I saw a single Whinchat, a brightly 
plumaged male, in a little piece of waste bushy land in 
the village of Laxey, between the high road and the 
tramway line (Nat., 1897, p. 122). 
