388 BRITISH BIRDS. ; 
houses, and somewhat local, very rarely being seen in the forest, its lively 
song prevents it from being overloooked. Its favourite resort is dense 
underwood, or plantations of young trees. Its song resembles that of the 
Whitethroat, some of its notes being quite as harsh as those of that 
bird; but the finest parts are almost as rich as the warble of the Blackcap. 
Its call-note, according to Naumann, resembles the syllable chek; and 
its alarm-note is said by the same authority to be a snarling rhar, which, 
when pronounced quickly, sounds like r-r-r-r-r. It also resembles the 
Whitethroat in its habits and in its harsh call-notes, which frequently 
resound from some tangled mass of briars and thorns on the margin of a 
pool or ditch; and also, like the Whitethroat, it tosses itself up from the 
top of a bush to catch a fly im the air or warble a snatch of song. Shy, 
active, and skulking, the Barred Warbler is a difficult bird to shoot, and 
generally a difficult one to find when shot. 
The food of the Barred Warbler is principally insects; but in autumn, 
according to Naumann, it lives largely on various fruits, such as currants, 
elder-berries, &c. It is a bird very rarely seen on the ground; and in 
passing from tree to tree its flight, ike that of its congeners, is undulating. 
The Barred Warbler is, according to Naumann, one of the earliest birds 
to leave for southern climes, many departing in August before the moult 
is completed. 
The nest is not like that of most Warblers, a slender structure, so 
loosely made as to be semitransparent, but is somewhat bulky and compact. 
It is composed of dry grass-stalks and roots, with generally some small- 
leaved plants, cobwebs, thistle-down, or other woolly material mixed with 
it. Outside it is rough enough; but inside it is very neat and round, 
rather deep, and lined with a few fine roots, cobwebs, or horsehair. The 
eggs are usually four or five in number, and in rare instances six; they 
are laid in the last week of May. The nest is well concealed, and is usually 
built in a thorn-bush not far from the ground. It is said to be some- 
times built almost on the ground; and an instance is recorded in the 
‘Journal fiir Ornithologie’ (1859, p. 455), of a nest of this species 
which was built on the topmost twigs of a birch 25 feet from the ground. 
‘The eggs of the Barred Warbler are very characteristic, and cannot easily 
be confounded with those of any other bird. Although much larger, they 
very closely resemble in colour and markings eggs of the Grey Wagtail. 
The ground-colour is dull buffish white; the underlying spots are grey, 
and, though somewhat obscured by the overlying layer of ground-colour, 
they appear distinct and bold enough when carefully examined. In the 
greater number of eggs the overlying spots are either absent altogether or 
are so small and pale as to be observed with difficulty ; but in some cases, 
though rarely, they are tolerably well defined and are brown, and much 
more numerous than the underlying spots (which they almost conceal), and 
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