34 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
the sunshine, and join all in a gentle sort of chirping, as if 
they were about to break up their winter quarters and betake 
themselves to their proper summer homes. It is well known, 
at least, that the swallows and the fieldfares do congregate 
with a gentle twittering before they make their respective 
departure. | 
You may depend on it that the bunting does not leave this 
county in the winter. In January, 1767, I saw several dozen 
of them, in the midst of a severe frost, among the bushes on 
the downs near Andover: in our woodland-inclosed district it 
is a rare bird. 
Wagtails, both white and yellow, are with us all the winter. 
Quails crowd to our southern coast, and are often killed in 
numbers by people that go on purpose. 
[While the cows are feeding in the moist low pastures, 
broods of wagtails, white and gray, run round them, close up 
to their noses, and under their very bellies, availing themselves 
of the flies that settle on their legs, and probably finding worms 
and /arve that are roused by the trampling of their feet. 
Nature is such an economist, that the most incongruous animals 
can avail themselves of each other. Interest makes strange 
friendships. — Observations on Nature.| 
Mr. Stillingfleet, in his Tracts, says that “if the wheatear 
does not quit England, it certainly shifts places, for about 
harvest they are not to be found, where there was before great 
plenty of them.” ‘This well accounts for the vast quantities 
that are caught about that time on the south downs near Lewes, 
where they are esteemed a delicacy. There have been shep- 
herds, 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 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 
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