Wheatears
OR FALLOWCHAT, is a pleasant little bird which is found to be very satisfactory at the end of the Lordon season, while we are still waiting for the grouse and the partridges. It winters on the shores of the Mediterranean, but comes over to England to breed in mid-March. Alighting on our southern coasts, it spreads itself over the British Islands, even to Orkney and Shetland. When the breeding season is over, then is the time to catch it with advantage. This is not only because we are disposed to give all birds their freedom while they have families dependent on them; but also, and chiefly, it is on their return south that the wheatears can be caught in sufficient numbers to make it worth while to pursue them. Towards the end of July old birds and young ones, fat and plump, begin to collect on the Sussex downs, meaning to cross the Channel in search of their winter homes. On St. James's day, the 25th of July, the shepherds of the South Downs begin to set nooses and lay traps for them. All the traps and nooses are ready by the 1st of August. One shepherd has been known to catch a thousand birds in a day. He can easily catch five hundred. And this system of ensnaring goes on till the third week in September, when the birds have nearly all left. Each bird is supposed to be worth a penny to the shepherd. At least, Southey tells the story Whey of one of the amiable minor poets, Hurdis, who used to let the birds out of the traps which he found in his walks, but always left a penny in place of each, to soothe the disappointment of the shepherds. A penny is not much to give for a bird which has been honoured with the name of the English ortolan. It is needless to say that in Leadenhall Market, and in the hotels of the Sussex watering places, the little birds, generally sold by the dozen, are charged a good deal more than a penny apiece. They are mightily prized in the end of summer, when winged fowl, with the exception of the heroes and heroines of the barn-door, are scarce at our tables; and they are to be treated as larks.
As to the name of the bird, which is not wheatear, but wheatears, it must be enough to say that it has nothing to do with wheat, nor with any kind of ear, whether of corn or of bird. In a very old cookery book that of La Varenne the name of the bird is given as Thiastias.
What does it mean?