136 SYLVIAD^E. 



and occasionally catching flies on the wing. It often, too, 

 descends to the ground, and picks up insects among the 

 herbage. I have never heard it sing on the ground ; but 

 while employing itself aloft, it rarely allows more than a 

 few minutes to elapse without going through its short and 

 sweet song. This, though very agreeable, possesses no great 

 variety, and is composed of about twenty or thirty notes, 

 the latter ones of which are repeated rapidly, and form 

 a natural cadence. For many years this pleasant little 



THE WILLOW-WARBLER. 



melody, or the simpler song of the Chiif-chaffj has been the 

 first sound I have heard to announce the arrival of the 

 summer birds of passage ;* perhaps it is on this account 

 that it is with me, at all seasons, a favourite rural sound. 



Ornithologists seem well agreed that the Willow- warbler's 

 food consists entirely of insects. This may be so, but I am 

 much mistaken if a brood of this species annually hatched 



* I heard it this year, 1859, which was remarkable for its mild 

 winter and spring, so early as the 19th of March. 



