I04 Thh Wood- Warbler. 



tail, if not the whole body of the bird, vibrate with the exertion." Unfortunatel}^ 

 when I have heard the bird, I have been too eagerly engaged in search of its nest 

 to make notes respecting its song, or I would give my own rendering ; memory 

 is a treacherous staff to lean upon, but so far as it serves me in this particular 

 instance, I should be inclined to accept Seebohm's rather than Blyth's version, as 

 not onl)' appealing to my conviction of its greater accuracy as a reminiscence, but 

 as sounding less like a particularly irritating street song. 



I have, several times, found the nest of this species in coarse grass-tussocks, 

 or amongst the dead leaves of a small branch, torn off by the wind and half 

 hidden by grass and nettle ; always, however, in openings in beech or oak-woods, 

 and not far from the outskirts. Unfortunately I never secured any eggs of the 

 Wood- Warbler ; the nests which I found having either been only just completed, 

 or perchance plundered of their contents ; not, however, by country lads, or they 

 would have been torn out and destroyed. 



The nest, like that of its congeners, is semi-domed, and constructed of dead 

 grass mixed with leaves and occasionally a little moss; it is lined with horsehair, 

 but never with feathers. The eggs number from five to seven and are pure 

 white, more or less densely speckled, spotted or blotched with purplish-brown and 

 intermixed with numerous shell-spots ; the markings are either scattered broad- 

 cast, partly confluent so as to form irregular patches, or are partly collected iuto 

 a zone towards the larger end. 



The food of the Wood- Wren consists principally of insects, their larvae, and 

 spiders ; but there is no doubt that it also eats elder-berries when procurable. 



The call-note has been described as dce-ur, dtc-ur, but more probably the 

 sound is tee-ur, though the call of the Starling certainly sounds like Joey dee-ur, 

 liee-ur : it is not easy to distinguish the d from the / sound in a whistled note. 

 Touching another sound uttered by this bird, Howard Saunders wTites: — "Sloping 

 wooded banks are favourite situations for the nest, which often is not merely on 

 the ground, but is actuall}- set in some natural hollow, well concealed by herbage. 

 The hen at times sits very close : when fairl}^ beaten out, she will feed in an 

 unconcerned manner, uttering a low />/-<> for a quarter of an hour or more ; after 

 which she works round to a branch above her nest, drops down abruptl}' and 

 enters it in an instant," 



Gatke says that the Wood- Warbler "visits Heligoland only in ver}- isolated 

 instances, such few individuals as are met with being seen for the most part in 

 warm May days. During its autumn migration — from the middle of Jul}' to the 

 middle of August — the bird is much rarer." 



As an aviary bird the Wood- Wren would doubtless be interesting, though 



