GARDEN-WARBLER. 415 



and varied, some of them liute-like and approaching in mellow- 

 ness even to those of the Blackbird. 



The Garden-Warbler seldom comes to this country in the 

 spring till towards the end of April or the beginning of 

 May. Selby remarks that it is rarely seen till the elm and 

 the oak are bursting into leaf: the males, as is usual 

 among our summer-migrants, arriving before the females. 

 It frequents woods, thick hedges, shrubberies and gardens, 

 feeding on insects, peas, various fruits — cherries in particular, 

 according to Herbert — and the berries of the ivy, privet, elder 

 and berberry. Sweet says it is very fond of the caterpillar 

 of the common cabbage-butterfly, and is the only Warbler 

 which will eat that destructive animal. The nest is placed in 

 a low bush, or among rank herbage. I have found it hidden 

 in a row of peas and pea- sticks in a garden, and once among 

 some tares in an open field. Jesse mentions an instance 

 under his own observation of a Garden- Warbler building 

 its nest three times in succession among some ivy growing 

 against a wall. The materials, consisting of goose-grass, 

 bents, with a little wool and moss, lined with fine fibrous 

 roots and a few hairs, are firmly but lightly put together : 

 the eggs are four or five in number, of a greenish-white, 

 with suffused patches of faint grey, clouded and marbled 

 with irregular blotches of olive-brown, among which are 

 spots and specks of deep brown. The eggs measure from -84 

 to '71 by from '(j'2 to '55 in. 



This species was first made known, as a British bird, by 

 Willughby, to whom it was sent from Yorkshire by Mr. 

 Jessop of Broom Hall, near Sheftield, under the name of 

 " Pettichaps "*. More than a century afterwards Sir Ashton 



* This name seems never to liave been in general use in England, or it would 

 be readily adopted here ; but the Editor has to acknowledge the kindness of 

 Mr. Henry Jackson of Trinity College, Cambridge, in ascertaining that it is still 

 applied to a bird (though of what species there is insufficient evidence to shew) 

 in the extreme north of Derbyshire, not very far from Sheffield. That gentleman 

 has communicated the information, obtained through Dr. Branson, that Mr. 

 Fentem of Eyam was lately told that some birds seen between that place and 

 Grrindleford Bridge were known in the country as " Pettichaps." Mr. T. C. 

 Penny has also obligingly sent an extract from Clare, the Northamptonshire poet. 



