The male bird is quickly apprehensive of danger, and in nine cases out of ten espies the intruder long before the latter espies him. It is too late to acquire much information about the site of the nest when your first intimation of the presence of this pretty migrant is a sight of him on some commanding perch. As in the case of the Wheatear, the Goldfinch, and the Golden-crested Wren, I have never discovered the male Whinchat actively participating in the building of the nest, and I am quite positive that not a few of the smaller nests which we come across in this country in the course of the summer are solely the work of the females.
One word more. Is the Whinchat a mimic? It certainly possesses a note at times not unlike that of a Partridge, though, of course, on a modified scale.
The Stonechat (Pratincola rubicola).
The Stonechat affects those wild uplands and barren heaths which are studded with a luxuriant growth of furze and other bushes of a corresponding height, and here it secures concealment for its nest and young, and a supply of food, more or less, all the year round. I have only twice met with this bird in Leicestershire, and that was during the winter of 1886, and the autumn of 1898. I should mention, perhaps, that my home for over ten years was at Ashlands in that county, between two and three miles from my native village, and in the winter I have referred to a Stonechat used to come and perch on the temporary railings which protected a new cricket-ground that was being made near to the house. None of the workmen engaged in levelling the turf had the least idea what the bird was, though they showed a little discernment when sending me a message to the effect that "a funny kind of Flycatcher" was their constant companion. Certainly, the Stonechat's method of taking its food on the wing very much resembles that of the bird above mentioned, and the fact of its presence near to Ashlands in mid-winter tended to confirm Harley's statement to the effect that at that season "it left its ordinary habitat of the whin-covered moor and wild for the cultivated field and hedgerow." What warranty he had, however, for saying that the nest was occasionally lodged on the horizontal bough of a Scotch fir, I know not.
I am presumptuous enough to think, after careful observation, that the nomenclature of each of the three species, viz. the
