42 



WHITETHROAT. 



Hedge-rows and thickets overgrown with brambles are favourite 

 resorts of this lively bird, and owing to its predilection for beds of 

 nettles it is commonly known by the name of " Nettle-creeper." In 

 May the slight but rather deep nest, made of fine grass-stems and 

 lined with bents and horsehair, is usually placed low down in almost 

 any kind of coarse vegetation, or in straggling hedges ; the 4-6 

 eggs are greenish-white or stone-colour, blotched and sometimes 

 zoned with violet-grey and light brown : measurements 7 by "55 in. 

 The food consists largely of Tipuhe and other insects ; also fruit 

 and berries during the season. The alarm-note is harsh and scold- 

 ing : the male showing considerable annoyance at the presence of 

 an intruder on his domain, and often following the pedestrian for 

 some distance along a hedge-row, flitting from branch to branch 

 with every feather on the throat and crest extended, agitating the 

 outspread tail, and anon shooting almost perpendicularly into the 

 air. The female is less demonstrative, and generally skulks amongst 

 the herbage. The sweet but somewhat monotonous song of the 

 male, uttered in snatches with great energy, is frequently to be heard 

 by night as well as by day in May and June. 



Adult male in spring : head and neck smoke-grey ; mantle and 

 wings brown, with broad rufous margins to the secondaries ; tail- 

 feathers brown, except the outer pair, which are mostly dull white, 

 the next pair having broad white tips ; chin and throat white, 

 passing into vinous-buff on the breast ; abdomen brownish-white, 

 darker on the flanks ; under wing smoke grey ; bill brown, lighter on 

 lower mandible ; legs and feet pale brown. Length 5-5 in.; wing 

 to end of 3rd and longest quill 2 '8 in. The female is duller, and 

 has the head brown like the back, while the vinous tint of the breast 

 is absent. The young are rather more tawny-brown and rufous. 



Those Whitethroats which breed in the south of Europe, and 

 which migrate only a short distance southwards, are rather small in 

 size and brilliant in the contrast of their colours. A further step in 

 the process of evolution has produced a perfectly recognizable 

 species in the shape of Sylvia conspicillaia ; much smaller, with 

 more conspicuous ear-coverts, and far brighter colours ; but other- 

 wise, in habits, colour of eggs, t\:c., a miniature reproduction of 

 our bird. Everyone of ornithological tastes who has visited 

 Gibraltar, Malta, or almost any place in the Mediterranean basin, 

 will remember the Spectacled U'arbler, and appreciate the force of 

 the comparison. 



