318 THE WILLOW WREN 



The Willow Wren, or Willow Warbler. 



(Motacilla Trochilus.) Linn. (Sylvia Trochilus.) Lath. 



Loud whistle on, my bonnie thrush ; 



Sing sweeter yet, sweet wren ; 

 You seem to people ilka bush, 



To wile's away frae men. 



Unless the swallow, there is no bird I see and hear with 

 greater pleasure and reminds me more of summer than the 

 willow wren, which, like all our feathered summer visitors, 

 comes at the call of Nature to the home of its nativity to fulfil 

 the sacred duties of life — make love, build, and brood and rear 

 its young, then go away when Nature's object is accomplished, 

 and insect life for the season done, and passes our winter 

 elsewhere until the budding leaves proclaim summer again. 

 When first heard in May, by the margin of some silent wood, 

 there is a sweet simplicity in its cheerful, yet plaintive, song 

 which birls in the heart of man — at least every true naturalist's, 

 and sends a finer thrill of pleasure through his mind than the 

 most imposing ritual of a creed — unless the creed of Nature, 

 sense, and truth — the deities and trinity of Reason, for as 

 Shelley says — 



" Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts." 



Like the wood wren, it makes its domed nest under the 

 herbage, also of moss, dry leaves, dry grass, and fibres, lined 

 with hair and wool, and stuffed with feathers. It is 5-J inches 

 diameter outside and 2^ within. Eggs, usually seven, rounder, 

 pale pink, spotted with rusty brown spots ; the wood wren's being 

 darker and more freckled. It arrives here about the end of 

 April; I have seen them on the 17th. The chiff-chaff comes first, 

 the wood wren last. On the 19th April, on the watch for them, I 

 noted down — " Not yet seen the willow wren, although I hear 

 the little cole-tits singing their loud cheeka-cheeka song in the 

 wood." It frequents open strips and young plantations near 

 their margins, grassy drives, and hedge banks. They begin to 

 breed about thiee weeks after arrival. On the 26th May, for 

 the purpose of ascertaining this, I saw a pair treading on an ash 

 tree at the road side, near Allan Hill, and, walking along the 



