WHITE THR OATS 113 



alarm which is lower in pitch and harsher, but is 

 slurred upward in just the same way as that of the 

 willow-warbler and chiffchaff. It may be faintly 

 suggested by the word crmi-ee pronounced rapidly 

 and in this interval : 



=e: 



Cruu - ee. 



The lesser whitethroat resembles the nightingale 

 (and sedge -warbler alarmed for its young) in the 

 frequent utterance of a low alarm-croak, something 

 like the word currr. It also resembles the nightin- 

 gale in one feature of its song — the production of a 

 long, full, bubbling note, closely like, but fuller than 

 the long rattling song of the cirl -bunting. This 

 song-note I have heard uttered by lesser white- 

 throats between Oxford and Witney, Aust Cliff and 

 Gloucester, Andover and Southampton : I therefore 

 presume that the exclamation is of general occur- 

 rence where the cirl-bunting also abounds. The 

 nightingale repeats it more or less frequently. The 

 redstart seems always to abbreviate it. Mr. Harting 

 states that the Dartford warbler's song is not unlike 

 that of the whitethroat {Birds of Middlesex, p. 54). 

 The songs of the reed -warbler are of much the 



same character as those of the sedge-warbler. Mr. 



8 



