FICEDULA GARRULA. 



ORDER. INSESSORES. FAMILY. SYLVIADjE. 



WHITEBREASTED FAUVET. 



By Edward Blyth, Esq.* 



As the Whitebreasted Fauvet — the Lesser Whitethroat of most of its describ- 

 ers — appears to be very little known, even to natualists who have attempted to 

 describe it, I shall endeavour to give a full account of its habits, as observed 

 in a neighbourhood where it is rather a common bird than otherwise ; and I have 

 no doubt some of the readers of The Naturalist will recognize it as a regular 

 summer visitant in localities where it has been hitherto unsuspected. 



It arrives in Surrey about the middle, or towards the close, of April, though I 

 remember to have once seen its nest, with three eggs, so early as the 23rd of 

 that month ; this, however, I consider to be a very unusual occurrence, as some- 

 times it is not heard here till the beginning of May. Its coming is always 

 announced by its characteristic shrill, shivering cry, often delivered from the 

 midst of some tall, thick, hawthorn hedge, or from amid the branches of an elm, 

 especially if growing near a ditch. It appears partial to the vicinity of human 

 abodes, and is particularly abundant about little hedge-bound cottage gardens, 

 where its tiresome and monotonous, but lively, note is perpetually reiterated, and 

 becomes irksome from its too frequent repetition. It abounds in most of the 

 market gardens near London, and may be discovered even on commons, provided 

 there are trees ; but it is never found in open braky localities, or low hedges, 

 where there are no trees — the proper habitat of its congener, the Whitethroated 

 Fauvet (F. cinerea). In tall and leafy hedges, however, and in shrubberies, it 

 occurs very commonly. The Whitebreasted Fauvet is the most lively and energe- 

 tic of the British species, and the most restless when in motion. It is also of an ex- 

 tremely quarrelsome disposition, and will sometimes very fiercely attack and drive 

 away a Whitethroat from the vicinity of its abode. The same pugnacity is displayed 

 in a still greater degree in confinement, which renders it necessary to keep it alone, 

 to prevent its worrying other birds to death, even though thrice its own size, and 

 apparent strength. I have noticed in an aviary a bird of this species successively 



* Communicated by Neville Wood, Esq., author of British Song Birds, &c. 



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