CURRUCA CINERBA. 309 



This flight is so peculiar and amusing as to be noticed by all 

 naturalists. In walking past a hedge in a summer evening this 

 fussy little bird is sure to announce itself by its lively, short, and 

 varied song — the very opposite of the sweet low warble of the 

 willow wren. It will flit in front of you from twig to twig a 

 long way ; but if it sees a cat, at once will stop its churring, nor 

 cease its alarm till the cat retires. Like the rest of the 

 warblers it is a summer migrant, and. like all our feathered 

 summer visitors, along with their young, if alive, return — as 

 the equally fussy and garrulous King James the Sixth of 

 Scotland and First of Great Britain returned (however tardily) 

 from London to visit Scotland " with," as he said, " a salmon- 

 like instinct to the place of his birth." It makes its flimsy nest 

 amongst brambles, nettles, or rank herbage, near a hedge, ditch, 

 or thicket ; it is composed of the fine stalks of grasses, firmly, 

 though loosely, interwo\en with spiders' webs and wool, usually 

 lined with black horse-hair. But though it seems flimsy and 

 frail, and is one of the lightest of our birds' nests, it is as firm 

 and compact as the more closely woven structures of the 

 Fringillidce. Those I measured were 4 inches by 3 deep 

 outside, and 2 j- inches by If deep inside. The eggs four or five, 

 sometimes six. They are all more or less tinged with green and 

 darker specks, and usually seem smeared and dirty, and not 

 easily mistaken for those of any other bird. I have got their 

 nest under a hedge at Abbey Park, close to a willow wren's, and 

 also amongst willows at the burn-side near the Law Mill. On 

 the 11th of June I watched a pair in a garden on the south side 

 of South Street. I noted that " the male was a proud little bird ; 

 it puffed out its throat, sang, and flitted constantly about with 

 a higledy-pigledy sort of flight, flying forward a short way — 

 jerking up and down, then to the side — up again, while its long, 

 loose-like tail gave it such a fantastic, shuffling appearance as to 

 be well named ' shuffle-wing.' " Its food is like the rest of the 

 warblers — insects, larvae, and the smaller fruits. The general 

 colour is light greenish-brown ; head, darker ; wings and tail, 

 brown ; throat, white — hence its name ; breast tinged with red ; 

 bill and legs, dark brown ; iris, brown. Female similar, without 

 the red tinge on breast. Length, 5| inches by 8J in extent of 

 wings. The plumage is very soft and loose, which intensifies 

 its fantastic flight. 



