Their Eggs mid A^ests. 85 



scription of the nest is needed, except that it seems 

 slighter, and is thinner at the sides than those of the 

 Blackcap and Garden Warbler, but still it is not less 

 compact. The eggs vary a good deal in appearance, 

 but there is still such a family likeness among them 

 that they are easily recognisable by most egg-fanciers. 

 Green, in different shades, is the predominating colour. 

 —Fig. S, plate III 



LESSER WHITE-THROAT— (5;//77^ curruca ; 

 formerly, Curruca sylviel/a). 



Not so common a bird nearly, as the last, and rising 

 higher in the bushes and shrubberies it frequents than 

 it. It sings low and pleasantly when you are near 

 enough to hear it, and very incessantly, but its more 

 frequently heard notes are rather harsh. The nest, 

 found among low bushes and brambles, is like the 

 White-throat's, and the four or five eggs laid in it are 

 white, speckled, most at the large end, with ash or 

 light brown. — Fig, 9, plate III. 



GARDEN WARBLER— (5ji'/^/^ salicaria ; formerly, 

 Curruca ho r tens is). 



Pettychaps, Greater Pettychaps. — Inferior to the 

 Blackcap in song, as the Blackcap is inferior to the 

 Nightingale, only not at so great a distance. Still it 

 is a sweet songster. It comes to us to breed, and 

 frequents thick hedges and the covert afforded by 

 our shrubberies and pleasure-plantings in gardens. 

 The nest, like the Blackcap's in materials and detail, 

 of dry grass- stalks or bents loosely twined, but bound 

 together with wool, etc., and lined with hair and 



