Also 6 whekere (?), 7 wheat ears, wheatgear (?). [Early evidence wanting prob. on account of local origin; but the orig. form is app. still represented in the 17th cent. by wheatears (a. 1661) for *whiteeres, f. whit-, WHITE a. (cf. for the phonology the place-name Whittern, OE. hwítærn) + eeres, ers, ARSE, the name being given in allusion to the bird’s white rump; cf. Cornish dial. form whiteass, the similar dial. names white rump, wittol = white-tail (in Cotgr. whittaile, glossing F. culblanc ‘white-rump’), and Du. witstaart, G. weiss-schwanz. From wheatears, taken as pl., a supposed sing. wheatear was inferred, and association with WHEAT sb. (see quot. 1653, etc.) established the spelling of the first syllable.] A small passerine bird, Saxicola œnanthe, widely distributed over the Old World, having a bluish-grey back, white belly, rump, and upper tail-coverts, and blackish wings; esteemed as a delicacy.
1591. Shuttleworths’ Acc. (Chetham Soc.), 70. A courleve xvjd; thrie whekeres [so printed], xvjd; larkes and yowloringes, iiijd.
1653. J. Taylor (Water P.), Cert. Trav. Uncert. Journ., 17. There were rare Birds I never saw before…. Th’are called Wheat ears, less then Lark or Sparrow…. The name of Wheat ears, on them is ycleap’d, Because they come when wheat is yearly reap’d.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies (1662), III. 98. Wheat-ears is a bird peculiar to this County [i.e. Sussex], hardly found out of it. It is so called, because fattest when Wheat is ripe, whereon it feeds…. That Palate-man shall pass in silence, who being seriously demanded his judgment concerning the abilities of a great Lord, concluded him a man of very weak parts, because once he saw him at a great Feast feed on Chickens when there were Wheat-Ears on the Table.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Wheat-gear, a Bird smaller than a Dottrel.
1724. De Foe, Tour Gt. Brit., I. II. 57. The Bird call’d a Wheatear, or as we may call them, the English Ortolans.
1770. Cumberland, West Indian, III. ii. A hot-brain’d headlong spark, that would run into our trap, like a wheat-ear under a turf.
1883. Century Mag., XXVII. 111. The wheat-ear uncovered its white rump as it flitted from rock to rock.
1894. R. B. Sharpe, Hand-bk. Birds Gt. Brit., I. 291. The winter home of the Wheatear extends from the North-western Himalayas to Persia, and also to North-eastern and Eastern Africa, as well as to Senegambia.
