22 THE LESSER WHITETHROAT 



THE LESSER WHITETHROAT 



SYLVIA 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 ; feet deep lead colour. 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 Uttle 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 were rare. 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 to come. 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. 



