344 Arrival of British Summer Birds, 



great, but that it will allow of a tolerably near approach ; 

 nearer, indeed, than any of its British congeners. It some- 

 times places its nest ]0 ft. or 12 ft. from the ground ; but more 

 commonly in low bushes, and not unfrequently among nettles 

 or other coarse herbage : whence, in these parts, this bird 

 (and not the whitethroat) has acquired the provincial name of 

 " nettle creeper;" by which term it is mostly known to the 

 peasantry. 



The lesser whitethroat differs remarkably, in confinement, 

 from all its British congeners, in the extreme quarrelsomeness 

 of its disposition ; resembling, in this respect, the willow wren 

 and chiffchafF. I have noticed this, in a greater or lesser 

 degree, in upwards of a dozen individuals ; and, in general, 

 they must not, on this account, be kept with other birds, or 

 they will fairly worry them to death, even if double or triple 

 their own size, as I have reason to know from experience. Its 

 manners in the cage (though not its attitudes) bear a very near 

 resemblance to those of the furze wren, or Dartford warbler 

 (Melizophilus provincialis). Both these little birds have, in 

 confinement, a remarkable habit of often throwing back the 

 head ; and they frequently climb along the wires, which none 

 of our other warblers ever do. They farther assimilate in 

 being puffy and thick of feathers about the neck and throat ; 

 and in sometimes uttering a kind of rattling note, peculiar to 

 themselves. In other respects, however, the furze wren ap- 

 proximates more to the whitethroat than it does to this species ; 

 and, in confinement, is as fond of fruit as either of these. Its 

 general habits, in the wild state, are quite those of the white- 

 throat ; and its manner of singing on the wing precisely the 

 same; its bill, also, is very similar to that of the whitethroat: 

 yet I now incline to the opinion that the furze wren forms a 

 distinct natural genus from these, taking the blackcap for the 

 standard of Curruca; and consider our two whitethroats as 

 species in some degree intermediate, these differing, however, 

 considerably from each other. The furze wren, in its mode of 

 nidification and eggs, very closely resembles the whitethroat 

 and other fauvettes ; and not the Maluri, to which genus it, in 

 some other respects, also very nearly approximates. 



The lesser whitethroat is never observed to mount singing 

 into the air, like the common species ; but pours forth its 

 pretty chirping song generally from amid the branches of a 

 tree, though sometimes from a bush. This is soft and melo- 

 dious, but weak ; and may be easily recognised by the fre- 

 quent recurrence of a note like sip, sip, sij). Like the other 

 fauvettes (Curruca), it raises its voice as it proceeds, and ends 

 generally with the monotonous and loud shrill note mentioned 



