BIRDS BROWN ABOVE AND WHITE BELOW. 59 



This bird is rightly named, being exchisively a 

 bird of the woods. Returning to England in the 

 latter half of April, it nests on the ground, but 

 usually ranges the higher branches of beech and oak 

 to feed and sing. Like the Willow-Wren, it is a 

 sweetly trustful bird, and a little patient watching 

 in the nesting season is often rewarded by a view of 

 the bird returning to its well-concealed, domed nest 

 with food for its young. Unlike those of the Chiff- 

 ChafF and Willow-Wren, the nest is not lined with 

 feathers. The facts that the Wood-Wren is a little 

 larger than the Willow- Wren and Chifr-Chaff, has a 

 full yellow eyebrow, and is brighter in colour generally, 

 are insufficient to enable any one unacquainted with 

 these three birds to distinguish them. Their habits 

 and songs, therefore, must be observed. The Wood- 

 Wren is a bird of the high woods, where he wanders 

 by short progresses from tree to tree beneath the sunlit 

 leaves, a little ' passionate pilgrim ' of song as ethereal 

 as the shadow and shine in which he moves. Some- 

 times he sings as he flits through the green spaces ; 

 oftener, taking his stand on some high bough and 

 gripping it with his little feet, he throws his head 

 back, and, with swaying body and vibrating wings 

 and tail, pours out his strenuous strain. The song 

 opens with a few detached, clear, warbling notes, but 

 becoming more rapid as it proceeds, ends with a long, 

 shivering trill in which the constituent notes barely 

 retain their individuality. If disturbed while nesting, 

 the bird flits on the low boughs about the intruder, 

 uttering a doleful ' Dor ! ' The call-note is ' Tui ! ' 

 Its commonest note is a metallic ' Ti7ig I ' delivered in 

 series of half-a-dozen evenly spaced notes. Being 



I 



