WHINCHAT. 57 
It has been met with by Robert Gray, Esq., of Southcroft, 
Govan, Glasgow, near Dunbar, in the end of December; also 
by Mr. H. Barlow, of Cambridge, in the mild winter of 
1838, and one was found dead by the Rev. Robert Holds- 
worth, of Brixham, at the entrance of the River Dart, in 
Devonshire, during a very severe frost, on January the 20th., 
1829: one has also been seen in Norfolk in the winter. In 
the neighbourhood of Southampton, Mr. William D. Balshaw 
writes in “The Naturalist,’ old series, volume ii., page 2384, 
that some remain throughout the year, and that White of 
Selborne, in his Natural History of that place, Letter xxv., 
to the Hon. Daines Barrington, makes a similar assertion; 
Bewick does so also. 
The Whinchat is found in a variety of situations, not only 
on ‘the wildest waste sae black and bare’ and those which 
are uncultivated, where the thorny shrub which has been 
appropriated to its name blooms and blossoms, but also 
among pasture fields, on whose hedges it may be seen perched 
and swaying itself about, mindful of the approach of danger 
at any point, or turning its head aside to catch a glimpse of 
any passing insect. 
The Whinchat arrives in different parts of the country 
from about the middle to the end of April, and in backward 
seasons not until the beginning of May. It departs again 
at different periods in October, or the beginning of November, 
according to the state of the season. 
It is generally easy of approach, particularly when it has 
a nest, shewing much anxiety for its young, and endeavouring 
to draw away any intruder, by flitting close before him; 
returning to its place by one or two more lengthened flights, 
when the desired object has been gained. It almost invariably 
perches on the topmost or outermost spray of the hedge or 
bush: it may be kept in confinement, and is esteemed as an 
article of food for the table. 
It sometimes shuffles its wings contemporaneously with the 
motion of the tail, which it has in common with the allied 
species. If disturbed and followed, it drops near the ground, 
along which it skims, until it alights again on some anes 
bush. 
The flight of these birds is light and nimble, and the 
tail is sometimes fanned. In hovering over a bush the wings 
are rapidly fluttered. 
They live on flies, beetles, and other insects, slugs, cater- 
