ee - 
ICTERINE WARBLER. 383 
fancy a Robin to have had lessons from a Blackbird. Perhaps, on the 
whole, the song of the Common Tree-Warbler comes nearest to that of the 
Marsh-Warbler; but often it reminds you strongly of the song of the 
Sedge-Warbler. At other times you may trace a fancied resemblance to the 
chirping of the Sparrow, the scolding of the Whitethroat, or the scream of 
the Swift, but all rattled off at such a rate one after the other, and repeated 
so often, that it arrests the attention at once. I have heard it in widely 
different localities, and very often; but in spite of its wonderful variety, I 
think the song is original and can see no reason for supposing the bird to 
be more of a mocking bird than the Song-Thrush or Nightingale. Some 
writers have compared the song to that of the Nightingale; but in 
quality of voice, in the richness of its tones, and the melody of its notes it 
is immeasurably inferior to that bird; but because in England the Common 
Tree-Warbler happens to be an occasional visitor, and such a very rare one, I 
must confess that his song was ten times as attractive to me as that of the 
Nightingale in the next plantation. But the best one can say of his voice 
is that it is avery high soprano. If he were a common bird, one might say 
he screamed, or even shrieked. His song does not fill the ear like that of 
the Nightingale. 
The Common Tree-Warbler is essentially a lover of isolated trees. He 
does not seem to care very much for the thick forest, but delights to sing 
his song and build his nest in the trees in the gardens and the hedgerows. 
Like the Robin, he seems to like to be close to the houses ; and, like that 
_ bird, he has the reputation of being very quarrelsome and very jealous of 
the approach of any other of his species on his special domain. His alarm- 
note is a fek, tek, tek, often heard in an angry tone. 
In its habits this bird combines the actions of a Tit with those of a 
Flycatcher, feeding for the most part on insects; but in autumn he 
is said to vary his diet with ripe cherries and the fruit of the currant, 
elder, &c. 
The nest of the Common Tree-Warbler is a very beautiful one, and is 
generally built in the fork of a small tree eight or ten feet from the ground. 
It is quite as handsome as that of the Chaffinch, but slightly smaller, more 
slender, and deeper. It is composed of dry grass deftly interwoven with 
moss, wool, spiders’ webs, thistledown, strips of bark, and lichen, lined 
with fine roots, grass-stalks, and horsehair. The eggs are four or five in 
number, very rarely six. They are brownish pink in ground-colour, evenly 
spotted and more rarely streaked with very dark purplish brown, which 
occasionally approaches black. The underlying markings are very in- 
distinct ; and some specimens are very finely streaked with lighter brown, 
almost like a Red-winged Starling’s egg. Some eggs have the spots much 
smaller and finer than others. They vary in length from *78 to *65 inch, and 
in breadth from 6 to ‘5 inch. They approach very closely the eggs of the 
