6 FIELD-STUDIES OF RARER BIRDS 



A little later, and it has threaded its way through 

 several small patches. Then it utters its decidedly 

 harsh call-note of tirr, a cry as hurried as its 

 authors flight and habits. This cry is usually 

 delivered twice with a scarcely perceptible interval 

 intervening, though after this there is a lapse of 

 several seconds before it is heard again, and so on. 

 Sometimes it sounds like the slurred, double 

 syllable pt-tirr ; sometimes, too, it is heard as a 

 single or triple combination. This note is charac- 

 teristic, and almost unmistakeable. It is well 

 to say "almost," seeing that to anyone lacking 

 full pretensions to ear, the Whitethroat's call of 

 chirr is not very dissimilar, while, to make matters 

 worse, the Whitethroat is frequently met with in 

 the self-same gorse-co verts, though naturally until 

 that species' advent into England until mid- April 

 at earliest, that is confusion is impossible. Of 

 course, the mistake can only be made failing a 

 sight of the musician. The Whitethroat, however, 

 frequently supplements its original chirr which it 

 is apt to repeat an indefinite number of times 

 with a rasping weet, weet, weet. The " Dart- 

 ford ' never does. This double tirr, then, con- 

 stitutes the normal and characteristic call of the 

 Dartford Warbler. I, for one, can trace in it not the 

 slightest suggestion of the "melodious pit-chou" 

 ascribed to the species by several bird- writers. 

 These men must have plagiarized, and wrongly, as 

 it happens, or invented. 



