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THE WHEAT-EAR. 
Saxicola cenanthe Bechstein. 
PLATE V. 
Saxicola oenanthe, Bechstein. — Motacilla cenanthe, Linn. 
— Sylvia cenanthe, Lath Vitaflora cenanthe, Sleph. 
— Provinciallij Wheat-ear, Fallowsmith, White-tail, or 
White-rump. 
This clean, and to the ornithologist, interesting 
bird, is one of our earliest summer visitants, some- 
times appearing even when the ground is whitened 
with the last snow showers of spring. It is a 
common species, and extends from the Land’s 
End to Cape Wrath, reaching northward to the 
Hebrides. It abounds in the downs and warrens 
of the south, on the lower ranges of sea coast 
around our islands, and in nearly all the pastoral 
districts of Scotland. In the latter it arrives in 
the first week of March, and spends the breeding 
season, flitting from stone to stone, from one 
rising ground to another, or in a district where 
stone walls form the enclosures, flitting before 
the traveller, and appearing to fall, as it were, on 
the opposite side of the wall, when starting to 
resume its flight. It breeds in holes, under and 
among rocks and stones, in the burrows of rabbits, 
even occasionally in those scraped by the Sand 
