WARBLERS. OL 
successive years a specimen of this bird took up its 
abode in his garden, and systematically cleared some 
China roses trained against the house of the aphides, 
or ‘‘sreen blight,” which infested them. And. the 
Rev. Maurice Bird tells me that he has often watched 
chiffchaffs hawking for insects, after the fashion of 
the fly-catcher, upon warm, sunny days in the early 
part of the year. 
The caterpillars of the Green Oak moth, too, that 
pretty but destructive little creature, are slaughtered 
by the bird in myriads, and there can be no doubt 
that to its efforts we are largely indebted for the 
preservation of our forest oaks from serious injury, 
if not from total destruction. For these caterpillars, 
small though they may be, compensate by their 
numbers for their individual insignificance, and, if 
not kept down, will soon strip a large tree of its 
foliage ; and a tree thus treated receives a very severe 
shock, which, if often repeated, can end only in its 
death. The services of the bird, therefore, are 
really of a very valuable character, and fairly entitle 
it to a high position among the friends of man. 
The chiffchaff, whose peculiar cry has earned for 
it its popular title, is the first of the warblers to 
arrive in this country and the last to depart, its visit 
extending over as nearly as possible seven months, 
from the middle of March, broadly speaking, to the 
middle of October. The nest is not unlike that of 
the wren, and is always built either on or near the 
ground, and the eggs, five or six in number, are 
greyish white, spotted and speckled with dull red. 
