A LONDON WHEATEAR.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] Sia,—I was strolling along ploughland in the suburb where I live (in the south and some six miles from Charing Cross) on the 19th of this month when a bird flew by me, flashing a white rump. It was a wheatear. I was fortunate enough to have my glass, so that I spent half an hour in close company with this beautiful bird, so elegant in vesture and motion that it puts the song-thrush, which it so much resembles in its action upon the ground, quite in the shade. My bird was in full summer plumage, without any of the buff margins of the back which the first immigrants sometimes have. This joyful experience seemed to me so unusual that I should like, if you will permit me, to ask those of your readers who are interested whether or no it is unique. The only other records of the wheatear in London I know are those of its occasional appear- ance on Hampstead Heath. Are there any for it in the South of London ? Secondly, Mr. W. H. Hudson says: " Cultivation it cannot tolerate; when the plough comes the wheatear vanishes." But my wheatear was as brisk and at home on ploughland as on its native down. I mean that it did not seem to he weariness which had induced it to break its journey here. Thirdly, have other wheatears been recorded from the South of England before the 13th P It would be charming if my wheat- ear were the first to get its name in the papers this year, the first to be seen in a southern suburb of London, and the first
to be seen snapping its mandibles at the text-books by selecting ploughland for an inn on its journey. My bird was alone and had departed the following day.—I am, Sir, &c.,
H. J. MASBINGRA31.
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