WILLOW-WARBLER 73 



It is under the name of Yellow Wren in Boys' History 

 of Sandwich, 1792. Writing in 1844 the Kev. J. Peni- 

 berton Bartlett says " the Willow-Wren is common in 

 Kent." 



The Willow- Wren is given among the arrivals of summer 

 birds at Shooter's Hill, Kent, by Mr. M. Hutchinson in 

 1844, who writes : " As I turned off Woolwich Common 

 (on the morn of April 16), into the brushwood that covers 

 the western face of Shooter's Hill, the jocund spring 

 burst on me with all its charms. The wood rang again 

 with the incessant song of the little Willow- Wren given 

 in all the height of excitement, and singing against each 

 other by scores. For three weeks, morning and evening, 

 I never passed along the Dover road without observing 

 a Willow- Wren sing its utmost on the tip-top of the 

 Lombardy poplar. In the following spring of 1845, the 

 Willow- AVren was found on April 7. On April 3, 1846, 

 as I rode through the brushwood on Shooter's Hill, I 

 observed a little light-coloured bird being driven about by 

 a sturdy Stonechat. The little fellow whipped into a 

 bramble bush, and I instantly heard the joyous song of 

 the gallant little Willow-Wren, a moment after he was 

 paying his respects to a pair of dicky dunnocTxS ; the bird 

 was all excitement, and scarcely knew what to be at. 

 On the 4th I met with numbers of Willow- Wrens on the 

 east of Plumstead Common, and rode with them for some 

 time in their progress westward. This, and other obser- 

 vations, lead me to think that many of the smaller birds 

 of passage came up the valley of the Thames with the 

 river for their guide. At Blackheath the earliest seen 

 was on April 19, 1859, and in 1861 on April 19 and 26. 

 The long and severe winter of 1860-61 delayed the 

 arrivals. On May 2 I saw a pair of Willow- Wrens 



