WHITETHROAT. 407 
until the beginning of May. As might be expected, it arrives a little 
later in Scotland, not being usually seen there until early in May. 
It will also be observed that the males come a little before the females. 
The Common Whitethroat is a bird of the thickets, and loves those places 
_ where vegetation is intergrown and tangled. You may often hear its 
harsh call-notes from the thickly matted hedgerows, or catch a hurried 
glimpse of it in the garden and the shrubbery. It is also one of the 
commonest birds on waste pieces of land over which there is a luxuriant 
growth of shrub, briar, bramble, and nettle; whilst even on the moorlands 
it is often seen gliding restlessly about the stunted thorn-bushes. The 
Whitethroat is a bird of the lanes, and is not found so often in thick 
woods and plantations; nor does it perhaps so commonly mount into the 
high branches of the trees as the Blackcap, but prefers the lower shrubs 
and bushes. 
The Whitethroat is a restless little bird, incessantly hopping from twig 
to twig—sometimes hiding from view, at others poised on a topmost spray. 
Athough by no means a shy bird, still it is one that likes to keep out of 
sight to a great extent ; and very often the trembling of a twig and the 
harsh call-note are the only signs of its presence as it rapidly threads its 
way up the hedgerow buried in the green foliage. But it is also some- 
times seen in the tallest trees, especially those standing in hedges, into 
which it will drop down if alarmed. In the tall branches its actions are 
just the same as near the ground. It hops quickly from branch to 
branch, is rarely still a moment, and very often flutters into the air to 
catch passing insects. Soon after his arrival the male bird may be 
heard to sing. It will be noticed that most birds, even if they be 
usually shy and wary, are much more tame when warbling forth their 
songs than at any other time. The Whitethroat is no exception, and 
when in- the act of singing is perhaps one of the boldest and most trustful 
of our Warblers. He will often perch on a tall twig and warble out his 
song within a few yards of where you are standing, the feathers on his 
head erected, and his throat swollen and quivering with the exertion. 
He is so full of music in the early summer, that sometimes as he 
flies from hedge to hedge he will soar up into the air above his line of 
flight and pour out his song like a Pipit or a Lark. 1 have watched the 
Whitethroat start from a bush and make an excursion into the air for at 
least fifty yards, singing all the time, every now and then checking him- 
self with a peculiar jerk of his partly expanded tail, and finally returning 
to his old perching-place. The song, although short, is in parts very sweet ; 
but as the notes are so often repeated, it is apt to become monotonous. 
The Whitethroat may be heard long before dawn; and sometimes it sings 
late in the evening. Its alarm-note is almost exactly represented by the 
sound of chzh, when sounded low resembling chsh. The bird also appears 
