A Warbler of Distinction 



is heard all day long from March to October. 

 Before attempting to describe the familiar 

 sound, I deem it prudent to recall to the mind 

 of the reader the notice that once appeared in 

 a third-rate music-hall : — " The audience are 

 respectfully requested not to throw things at 

 the pianist. He is doing his best." To say 

 that this warbler emits incessantly four or five 

 high-pitched, not very musical notes, is to give 

 but a poor rendering of his vocal efforts, but it 

 is, I fear, the best I can do for him. He is small, 

 so that the volume of sound he emits is not great, 

 but it is penetrating. Even as the cheery lay of 

 the Otocompsa bulbuls forms the dominant note 

 of the bird chorus in our southern hill stations, 

 so does the less melodious but not less cheerful 

 call of the flycatcher-warblers run as an under- 

 current through the melody of the feathered 

 choir of the Himalayas. 



In what follows I shall speak of Hodgson's 

 grey-headed flycatcher-warbler as our hero, 

 because I shrink from constant repetition of 

 his double double-barrelled name. I should 

 prefer to give him Jerdon's name, the white- 

 browed warbler, but for the fact that there 

 are a score or more other warblers with white 

 eyebrows. Our hero is considerably smaller 

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