BLACK-THROATED WARBLER. 161 



Bognie and Rotherwood, are where I have been 

 familiar with it. It was there that Sam shot the 

 first specimen that I obtained, on the 7th of Octo- 

 ber, and at the same lofty elevation, I afterwards 

 saw it repeatedly. Three or four of these lovely 

 birds frequently play together with much spirit, for 

 half an hour at a time, chasing each other swiftly 

 round and round, occasionally dodging through 

 the bushes, and uttering, at intervals, a pebbly 

 chip. They often alight, but are no sooner on the 

 twig than off, so that it is difficult to shoot them. 

 I have observed one peck a glass-eye berry, and 

 in the stomachs of more than one, I have ob- 

 served many hard shining black seeds. But 

 more frequently it leaps up at flies and returns to 

 a twig. At other times I have noticed it flitting 

 and turning about in the woods, apparently pur- 

 suing insects, and suddenly drop perpendicularly 

 fifteen or twenty feet, to the ground, and there hop 

 about. Restlessness is its character : often it alights 

 transversely on the long pendent vines and withes, 

 or on slender dry trees, hopping up and down them 

 without a moment's intermission, pecking at insects. 

 It is generally excessively fat, and what is rather 

 unusual, the fat is as white as that of mutton. 



In the middle of March I met with it in the 

 neighbourhood of Spanish town, and, on the 9th of 

 April, Sam found it at Crabpond, for the last time, 

 soon after which it, no doubt, deserted its insular 

 for a continental residence. 



The form of the beak as well as the habits, 

 of this bird, indicate an approach to the Fly- 

 catchers. 



