64 The Whitethroat. 



yello^vish brown and with violet-gre}- shell-markings : it would be rash to assert 

 that such eggs never existed, but I must confess that I never saw an3'thing 

 approaching this variety among the hundreds which I have examined. 



This species is very largely insectivorous and its 3'oung are reared solely 

 upon this diet, caterpillars, spiders, and crane-flies being its favourite articles of 

 food ; in the early fruit season it also robs the raspberr\' canes and currant- 

 bushes, and is not averse to elder- and blackberries ; earl}^ in August it is said 

 also to eat the unripe milky corn. 



The "Nettle Creeper," or "Jolly Whitethroat" as the rustics call this bird, 

 has a short but clear and melodious song, and may frequently be heard in the 

 countr}- lanes singing from the top of a hedge or one of the lower branches of a 

 tree; sometimes you may see him from simple exuberance of joy soaring upwards 

 after the manner of a Pipit and presently flinging himself downwards to the 

 hedgerow ; if you approach to watch him more closely he slips over to the other 

 side of the hedge, rising and falling just ahead of you until convinced of 

 j-our pursuit, when he wheels round and returns perhaps to the point from which 

 he started ; near to which, perchance, his nest may be concealed. The call-note 

 is a clear pinvcet-plnvcct-plnveet, but the alarm-note is a harsh hissing sound. 



The Whitethroat is well-known as a cage-bird and is not especially delicate, 

 if supplied with plenty of insect food ; but, if this cannot be provided, he is un- 

 able to stand an English winter in an unheated aviar}-, and without question an 

 aviary, not a cage, is the onl}- confinement to which any Warbler ought to be 

 subjected : doubtless, like all these birds, the Whitethroat does in time become 

 reconciled to the close imprisonment of a cage; but no aviculturist, unless a great 

 worshipper of bird-shows, would take much pleasure in watching its cramped 

 movements in such an enclosure. 



The Whitethroat will sing freely in an aviary, but whether it ever does so 

 in a cage I cannot sa}-; a male captured on its arrival in this countr\-, probable- 

 would do so, in time ; but a hand-reared bird would be unlikely to give this 

 satisfaction to its owner. It is therefore almost certain that caged Whitethroats 

 are rarelj' kept excepting for the show-bench ; they would hardl}' be selected for 

 their brilliant plumage, and their song would certainly be heard to the greatest 

 advantage, to say the least of it, in an aviary. To keep so restless and sprightl}' 

 a bird as the Whitethroat in close confinement, merely for the sake of the slight 

 profit which it may bring to its owner in the way of prizes, is not only a 

 cruelt}-, but a meanness, of which no real bird-lover, who took the trouble to 

 reflect upon it, could well be guilty. 



