80 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 
while quietly seated on the bench below, and hidden 
from its sight by the broad leaves of the nut-trees, I 
have watched it through the interstices of the foliage 
with great interest. Here I heard to advantage the 
low inward warbling, which is not noticed without being 
close to it, but which is very sweet. This would be 
interrupted, or rather ended, by the loud, shrill, well- 
known notes which Bechstein describes by the words 
“ Klap, klap ;” while at intervals it would utter several 
times in succession a hissing kind of note resembling the 
word “ tzee,”’ repeated three times. Sometimes the nest 
would be placed well hidden in a currant-tree fence close 
by, and sometimes in a thick privet hedge which shut 
in my garden from the stream flowing past it. I never 
could perceive any difference between the male and the 
female, though I believe the latter is generally described 
as somewhat paler in colour. 
The Wood Wren (S. sylvicola), or, as it is better 
known with us by the name of the “yellow willow 
wren,” regularly visits us, but I have only occasionally 
succeeded in finding the nest, which has always been 
placed on the ground, and well concealed with withered 
leaves. The eggs are rather larger than those of S. tro- 
chilus, and differ so greatly in the colour that they 
cannot be mistaken. The ground is pure white, dis- 
tinctly but closely freckled with dark brownish purple ; 
in some there are spots of a light purple underlying the 
others, but not easily seen except on close inspection. 
Some have the spots very thickly distributed, giving 
quite a darker tone to them, and being still more closely 
accumulated at the larger end. Others are thinly 
marked, while I have seen one in which the spots were 
arranged in a somewhat indistinct zone. The bird itself 
