23 THE LESSER WHITETHROAT 
THE LESSER WHITETHROAT 
SVLVIA CURRUCA 
Head and lore dark ash-grey ; rest of the upper parts greyish ash, tinged 
with brown; wings brown, edged with ash-grey; tail dusky, outer 
feather as in the last, the two next tipped with white ; lower parts pure 
silvery white ; feetdeep leadcolour. Length five inches and a quarter. 
Eggs greenish white, spotted and speckled, especially at the larger end, 
with ash and brown. 
GILBERT WHITE in his charming history says, ‘‘ A rare, and I think 
a new little bird frequents my garden, which I have very great 
reason to think is the Pettichaps; it is common in some parts of 
the kingdom ; and I have received formerly dead specimens from 
Gibraltar. This bird much resembles the Whitethroat, but has a 
more white, or rather silvery breast and belly ; is restless and active, 
like the Willow-wrens, and hops from bough to bough, examining 
every part for food; it also runs up the stems of the crown-im- 
perials, and, putting its head into the bells of those flowers, sips the 
liquor which stands in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes 
it feeds on the ground like the Hedge-Sparrow, by hopping about 
on the grass plots and mown walks.”’ The little bird of which the 
amiable naturalist gives so interesting a description, was, there is 
little doubt, that which is now called the Lesser Whitethroat, 
then a ‘new bird’, inasmuch as it had not been made a distinct 
species, and necessarily a ‘ rare bird’, not because a few only visited 
Britain, but because, until his time set the example, competent 
observers of birds wererare. It differs externally from the preced- 
ing, in its smaller size, and the darker colour of its beak, upper 
plumage, and feet, and resembles it closely in its habits, though I 
have never observed that it indulges in the eccentric perpendicular 
flights, which have gained for its congener, the Greater Whitethroat, 
the quaint sobriquet of ‘singing skyrocket.’ It feeds, too, on 
insects, and is not found wanting when raspberries and cherries 
are ripe. But no matter what number of these it consumes, it 
ought with its companions to be welcomed by the gardener as one 
of his most valuable friends. For it should be borne in mind, that 
these birds, by consuming a portion of a crop of ripe fruit, do not 
at all injure the trees, but that the countless aphides and cater- 
pillars which they devoured at an earlier period of the year, would, 
if they had been allowed to remain, have feasted on the leaves and 
young shoots, and so not only have imperilled the coming crop, 
but damaged the tree so materially as to impair its fertility for some 
time tocome. Those birds, therefore, which in spring feed on insects 
and nourish their young on the same diet, may be considered as 
necessary to protect from injury the trees which are destined to 
supply them with support when insect food becomes scarce. Con- 
sider what would be the result if the proper food of birds were 
leaves, or if insects were permitted to devour the foliage unchecked ! 
our woods would be leafless, our gardens would become deserts, 
