THE WILLOW WARBLER. m 



valleys of our country if those insect hunters were no 

 more. 



The Willow Warbler pairs annually, as a rule, a few 

 days after the arrival of the females, but nest building is 

 not commenced at once. During the mating season you 

 sometimes see them chase each other with startling 

 rapidity, darting unharmed through all the intricacies of 

 the tangled undergrowth with the rapidity of a meteor. 

 May, with its expanding buds and flowery train, arrives, 

 and the little birds must see about their all important 

 purpose. Though you see them far up amongst the 

 mighty branches, yet they do not aspire to such a loft)^ 

 site for their abode. On some cosy bank amongst the 

 trailing brambles, along the hedgerow side, or even far 

 away in the centre of the mowing grass, they find a 

 place adapted to their wants. The nest of this bird is 

 but rarely, very rarely, found built at any height from the 

 ground. I have however seen their nest several feet from 

 the ground, but the instance is solitary in my experience 

 The nest in question was built partly on a stone jutting 

 out of an ivy-covered wall, and partly supported by the 

 stem of a small hawthorn tree. It was embosomed in 

 the ivy's glossy foliage, one of whose creeping branches 

 formed its mairi support : it contained four eggs. The 

 nest of the Willow Warbler is a very loose structure, and 

 once removed from its original position, will bear but 

 the most delicate usage. It is composed of dry grass, a 

 few withered leaves, and lined first with horsehair and 

 rootlets, and then a plentiful bed of feathers. I once took 

 a nest of this bird carefully to pieces, and in it I found two 

 hundred feathers of various sizes, but chiefly of a downy 

 texture, of the Blackbird, Thrush, Rook, domestic Duck, 

 and poultry. Besides these there were countless hairs of 

 horse and cow, coarse and fine grass, scraps of moss, and 



