104 Thk Woou-Warbler. 



tail, if not the whole body of the bird, vibrate with the exertion." llufortnnatcl}- 

 when I have heard the bird, I have been too eagei'ly engaged in search of its nest 

 to make notes respecting its song, or I would give my own rendering ; niemor}^ 

 is a treacherous staff to lean upon, but so far as it serves me in this particular 

 instance, I should be inclined to accept Seebohm's rather than Blyth's version, as 

 not onl}' appealing to my conviction of its greater accuracy as a reminiscence, but 

 as sounding less like a particular!}^ irritating street song. 



I have, several times, found the nest of this species in coarse grass-tussocks, 

 or amongst the dead leaves of a small branch, torn off by the wind and half 

 hidden by grass and nettle ; always, however, in openings in beech or oak-woods, 

 and not far from the outskirts. Unfortunately I never secured any eggs of the 

 Wood- Warbler ; the nests which I found having either been only just completed, 

 or perchance plundered of their contents ; not, however, by country lads, or the}^ 

 would have been torn out and destro3^ed. 



The nest, like that of its congeners, is semi-domed, and constructed of dead 

 grass mixed with leaves and occasionally a little moss; it is lined with horsehair, 

 but never with feathers. The eggs number from five to seven and are pure 

 white, more or less densel}'^ speckled, spotted or blotched with purplish-brown and 

 intermixed with numerous shell-spots ; the markings are either scattered broad- 

 cast, partly confluent so as to form irregular patches, or are partly collected into 

 a zone towards the larger end. 



The food of the Wood- Wren consists principally of insects, their larvae, and 

 spiders ; but there is no doubt that it also eats elder-berries when procurable. 



The call-note has been described as dee-nr, dcc-iir, but more probably the 

 sound is tee-iir, though the call of the Starling certainly sounds like Joey dee-ur, 

 hee-ur : it is not easy to distinguish the d from the / sound in a whistled note. 

 Touching another sound uttered by this bird, Howard Saunders writes: — "Sloping 

 wooded banks are favourite situations for the nest, which often is not merely o?i 

 the ground, but is actually set in some natural hollow, well concealed by herbage. 

 The hen at times sits very close : when fairly beaten out, she will feed in an 

 unconcerned manner, uttering a low pi-o for a quarter of an hour or more ; after 

 which she works round to a branch above her nest, drops down abruptlj' and 

 enters it in an instant." 



Gatke says that the Wood- Warbler " visits Heligoland only in ver}^ isolated 

 instances, such few individuals as are met with being seen for the most part in 

 warm May days. During its autumn migration — from the middle of Jul}' to the 

 middle of August — the bird is much rarer." 



As an aviary bird the Wood- Wren would doubtless be interesting, though 



