The Chiffchaff. 97 



chiff-chaff, as its name would lead one to expect) : yet, common as it is, the nest 

 of this bird is not by any means so easy to discover as one would suppose.* 



But for its very inferior song, slightly smaller size, duller colouring, weaker 

 and more undulating flight, the Chiffchaff might readily be mistaken for the 

 Willow- Wren; it is, however, far more a bird of the woods than the latter species, 

 often making its home in small clearings far away from the outskirts. Sometimes 

 however, the nest is built in small shaws or plantations where the undergrowth 

 is dense, and one nest in my collection was taken by my friend, Mr. O. Janson, 

 from a cavity in a steep bank just outside one of the Kentish shaws ; he was 

 searching for nests just ahead of me at the time and showed it to me in situ.'\ 



A very beautiful nest, which I illustrated as a frontispiece to my "Handbook 

 of British Oology," I found in course of construction on the top of a short mossy 

 stump almost buried in a large patch of dead coarse grass in a small clearing, at 

 the side of a woodland path some 500 yards from its entrance. The nest itself 

 was situated about twenty feet from the path (towards which its back was turned) 

 and was so interwoven with the surrounding dead grass that unless I had seen 

 the birds carrying materials to it, I should certainly never have noticed anything 

 to make me suspect its existence ; I marked the spot by treading a flint into the 

 edge of the path, and a week later again visited the spot, when finding that it 

 contained four eggs, I took it at once rather than risk the chance of its discovery 

 by someone else. 



Lord Lilford's experience of the Chiffchaff's nest in Northamptonshire differs 

 somewhat from my Kentish experience of it; he says that it "is hardly to be 

 distinguished from that of the Willow- Wren, but is, I think, more often placed 

 at some height from the ground than is the case with that bird." 



Judging from the nests which I have robbed, as well as those which I have 

 preserved, I should say that the majority of those of the Chiffchaff were slightly 

 higher in proportion to their width and more contracted round the opening than 

 those of the Willow- Wren ; the outside also is perhaps more generally decked 

 with dead leaves in nests of the former than of the latter species ; but to be 

 sure of one's facts, one ought to be able to compare a large number of nests 

 from different counties. 



The nest of the Chiffchaff is cave-like, or semi-domed, with a tolerably wide 



* The nonsense that has been written about this bird saying chijj, cheff, chaff is only an evidence of the 

 fact that the English are even now an imaginative people (I believe this has been denied) ; take away the 

 chaff and I will admit that the second syllable is sometimes uttered, though I believe it is only a slip on the 

 part of the bird, thus :— " Chiff-chiff, chiff-chiff chiff-cheff, chiffchiffr 



t I have been criticized for not stating that the nest of the Chiffchaff, although often placed near to or 

 ou the ground is never placed in it, like that of the Willow Warbler; but the nest here described was placed 

 in a hole in the ground, though not in level ground. 



