SYLVIA HIPPOLAIS. 313 



trees are bare and the wintry winds have driven, the summer 

 birds across the Straits the furze wren is in the height of its 

 enjoyment. I have seen them by dozens skipping about the 

 furze, alighting for a moment on the very point of the twigs, and 

 instantly diving out of sight again — singing their angry, 

 impatient ditty, for ever the same. They prefer where the furze 

 is very thick, high, and difficult to get in." The next genus in 

 the Sylviana is 



Genus, Sylvia. 



This interesting group of small birds may be considered 

 representative of the warblers, distinguished by liveliness and 

 activity — typed by the tits — constantly in motion amongst leaves 

 and branches in search of insects and larvae. The three wood 

 wrens — the yellow, the willow, and the short-winged, are so 

 much alike as to be mistaken for each other — thus is our 

 common Mother-Nature so lavish of creation that there shall be 

 no gap in her one grand whole of life. 



The Lesser Pettychaps, or Chiff-Chaff. 



(Motacilla Hipiwlais.) Linn. (Sylvia Hippolais.) Loth. 



" Where the small birds find in spring no thicket 

 To shroud them ; only from the neighbouring vales 

 The cuckoo, straggling up to the hill-tops, 

 Shouteth faint tidings of some gladder place. " — Wordsworth. 



It is called the chiff-chaff from its little song or double note 

 of chiff-chaff. It is also called the short-winged wood wren, and 

 is so like the wood and willow wrens as to be difficult of dis- 

 tinction, except by its note, although its shorter wings, less size, 

 and want of the yellow eyebrow do so on close inspection. The 

 legs also are black, instead of flesh-colour. As a guide, the 

 wings of the yellow wood wren are 3 inches long ; the willow 

 wren's 2 J inches ; and the chiff-chaff's 2 inches — the first 



