WILLOW WARBLER. WOOD WARBLER. 23 



PHYLLOSCOPUS TROCHILUS— Willow Warbler. 



This lively Willow Wren, as it is usually called, is frequent 

 throughout the county. Its cheerful note, from the recesses of the 

 low cluster of bushes it delights to occupy, may be heard in the 

 early spring for the hour together. In the valley of the Wye it is 

 very common. A cheerful colony always occupied the bushes on 

 the river bank of the Castle Green, in Hereford, until the bushes 

 were cut away. Its lively notes are, however, somewhat monotonous 

 if listened to for some time. 



A reference to this bird may well be inferred in the following 



lines by Tennyson — 



There is a little helpless innocent bird, 

 Will sing the simi^le passage o'er and o'er 

 For all one April morning, till the ear 

 Wearies to hear it. 



PHYLLOSCOPUS SIBILATRIX— Wood Warbler. 



The Wood Wren, as it is perhaps more often called, is a late 

 arrival. It seldom appears before the last days of April, and 

 sometimes not until the second week in May ; its arrival, says 

 Selby, coinciding with " the time ot the elms and oaks bursting 

 into leaf." It is a very local bird, and nowhere, perhaps, abundant 

 in Herefordshire. It is shy and timorous. Mr. Evans says of it 

 " when any foot approaches the neighbourhood of the nest, it utters 

 a plaintive note, soft and melancholy beyond description. There 

 is no scolding in it, no temper or violence, but quiet, pathetic 

 remonstrance, a note that seems to say that all its hopes and 

 treasures are at your mercy." 



Mr. White, of Selborne, describes the song of the Wood 

 Warbler as "joyous, easy, and laughing" "tweet, tweet" rapidly 

 repeated with a soft tremulous accent 



