wheater

wheater (plural wheaters)

1. Misspelling of wheatear (“bird”).
   • 1801, John Walker, Arthur Kershaw, The Universal Gazetteer, page 19:

     It is particularly famous for its wheaters, a small bird, of the size of a lark, not much inferior to an ortolane, which is taken on the SE.

   • 1813, Elijah Parish, Sacred Geography:

     The people have plenty of patridges, woodcocks, snipes, thrushes, woodpigeons, turtle doves, wheaters, and poultry.

   • 1987, The Geographical Magazine, page 572:

     As less and less of the Downs is used as traditional pasture and more grassland is turned over to arable agriculture, the once-common wildlife species – the Adonis Blue and Chalkhill Blue butterflies, grasshoppers and the wheater bird, for example – are fast disappearing.

• “wheater”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

• weareth, weather, whate'er, whereat, wreathe