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428 BRITISH BIRDS. 
In the hand the delicate shading of the eye-stripe, and of the margins of 
the feathers of the wings and tail, is exquisitely beautiful, but is almost all 
lost under the rude handling of the bird-skinner. The Wood-Wren is not 
at all shy, nor does he frequent exclusively the topmost branches of trees ; 
and with reasonable caution, a good binocular brings him almost under 
your eye. During the pairing-season the restless tit-like search for food—- 
in and out among the twigs, over and under the leaves, from bush to bush 
and tree to tree—is not so apparent. The little songster seems wholly 
devoted to his song, and remains singing at intervals from his twig, though 
ever and anon he leaves it for a short flight after a too tempting insect, 
which he catches on the wing, and takes to the nearest twig to repeat his 
song. In such a hurry is he to sing, that often, when flying from one tree 
to another, he begins his song on the wing, to finish it on his perch. The 
song, so aptly called by Gilbert White the ‘“ shivering” notes of the Wood- 
Warbler, when once heard can never be forgotten. It commences, for the 
first note or two, somewhat like that of the Willow-Wren, but rapidly in- 
creases in speed, finally running into a trill. It might be expressed on 
paper thus—chit, chit, chit, chit, chitr, tr-tr-tr-tr-tr-tre. The final trill 
somewhat resembles the note of the Grasshopper Warbler or the Lesser 
Redpole, or the prolonged ‘ shivering” part of the song of the Common 
Wren; and during its utterance the wings and tail, if not the whole body 
of the bird, vibrate with the exertion. The loud and plaintive call-note is 
in spring a rapidly uttered dee'-ur, dee’-ur, dee’-ur ; but in summer it alters 
somewhat, is less rapidly uttered, and the first syllable is less emphasized. 
The alarm-note is a whit, not unlike that of the Willow-Wren. 
The food of the Wood-Wren is unquestionably insects of various kinds. 
Newton says that it eats neither fruit nor berries; but Naumann asserts 
that it is especially fond of elder-berries. It can scarcely be probable that 
it is exceptional in this respect. Almost all insectivorous birds are more 
or less beccafict in autumn. 
Its flight is undulating, like that of most flat-winged birds ; and it has a 
habit of dropping down somewhat spirally onto a twig with half-expanded 
wings, in a manner reminding one of the Tree-Pipit. 
In Yorkshire the Wood-Wren is much commoner than the Chiffchaff, 
but more local. It is rarely seen in gardens or very small copses, and 
prefers the larger woods. I have never seen it more abundant than in the 
large pine- and beech-forests of North Germany. 
The nest, which is extremely difficult to find, is always on the ground, 
concealed amongst the grass, heath, or bilberry. It is semi-domed, com- 
posed of dry grass, with sometimes a little moss or a few leaves, and lined 
with horsehair, not with feathers. The eggs vary in number from five to 
seven, and are pure white in ground-colour, spotted and blotched with 
purplish brown, and with numerous shell-markings of violet-grey. Some 
