WHITETHROAT. 65 



The Nightingale has, within recent years, been reported 

 at Welbeck Wath in Yorkshire {Nat. 1899, p. 279). 



WHITETHROAT. 



Sylvia cinerea {Bechsteiti). 



Summer visitant, common, and generally distributed. 



The earhest known reference to the Whitethroat's con- 

 nection with Yorkshire was made by R. Johnson of BrignaU, 

 near Greta Bridge, in a letter to John Ray, dated 29th March 

 1672 : — " Honoured Sir .... It is like enough our White- 

 throat {curruca cinerea) is of the Ficedulae, for it is her manner 

 with us to fall upon a fair and ripe cherry, whose skin when 

 she hath broken with a chirp she invites her young brood, 

 who devour it in a moment " (" Correspondence of John Ray," 

 p. 96). 



Thomas Allis, in 1844, wrote : — 



Currucca cinerea. — Whitethroat — Abundant in most districts. 



This species arrives about the middle of April, sometimes 

 in the third week : the mean date for ten years at Barnsley 

 was the 25th, though in 1883 it was recorded as early as the 

 i6th, and in 1901 it was noted at Newsome on the 3rd. It 

 takes its departure in September. 



In all the wooded and cultivated districts it is commonly 

 met with, and has occasionally nested on the moors ; at 

 Buckden, in Upper Wharf edale, it was found at an elevation 

 of 1000 feet in Raikes' Wood. In the East Riding it is 

 frequent in the lanes and by-ways of the higher ground, such 



VOL. I. F 



