WOOD- AND WILLOW-WEENS. 67 



slope of Edge Hill, a few miles over tlie Warwickshire borders, 

 a pair or two may always be found. On the 19th May, 1880, 

 however, I observed a pair at Bloxham Grove. In Churchill 

 Heath Wood, near King-ham, Mr. W. Warde Fowler observed 

 it in May, 1888. Mr. Warner, who is acquainted with its 

 habits and appearance in Berkshire, has never met with it in 

 the neighbourhood of Standlake. The only locality in Oxford- 

 shire frequented by the Wood Wren in any numbers appears 

 to be the extensive woods at Nuneham Park, where I found a 

 great many pairs in May, 1888, and in company with Mr. K. 

 S. Batson found a nest containing seven eggs in the Lock Wood 

 on the 27th of that month. 



The habits of these delicate httle birds form a most in- 

 teresting study in field ornithology. I first became acquainted 

 with them in some of the great woods of Sherwood Forest, 

 imder the able tutorage of my friend Mr. J, Whitaker, who 

 has paid great attention to the natural history of this species^ 

 and who, I believe, first noticed the fact that the nest lining 

 consisted of dead grass and not of hair. This lining serves 

 to distinguish the nest of this bird from those of the ChifP- 

 chaff and Willow- Wren, both of which invariably line theirs 

 with feathers. 



The song of the Wood-Wren is very peculiar and distinc- 

 tive, and can be heard at a considerable distance, so that if a 

 wood is inhabited by a pair of these birds no one acquainted 

 with their notes could fail to detect their presence on searching 

 for them in early summer. 



U '•^' 



THE WILLOW- WREN". "^ "" 



Phylloscoj)US irochiltis. 



The Willow- Wren, or -Warbler, is a regular and abundant 

 summer visitor, and in some seasons perhaps our commonest 

 warbler. ' In Oxford alone there must have been two or three 

 hundred pairs in the spring of 1885.^ [A Year with the Birds, 



P 2 



