THE LAUGHING WILLOW-WREN 63 



they had earned, he called these two and also the 

 wood-wren, indifferently, Motacilla trochilus, or "a 

 kind of willow wren." And, strange to say, he makes 

 no note of the differences in their eggs and nests. 

 And from one note, where he speaks of willow-wrens 

 as " horrid pests in a garden, destroying the pease, 

 cherries, currants, etc.," it seems clear that he mistook 

 them for another member of the tribe of warblers, 

 the garden- warbler : for willow-wrens would not 

 touch fruit, and garden-warblers late in summer take 

 currants and other fruits. 



Garden- warblers are not mentioned in the " History 

 of Selborne " : those little shy brownish birds, that sing 

 almost as well as blackcaps, in the same bright, pure 

 strains, but less carefully and more hurriedly : seeing 

 the bird, we know it to be no blackcap, as it lacks the 

 male blackcap's black cap, and the female's reddish 

 brown on the head. The sweet, swift warbling comes 

 pouring from the bushes the bird frequents for hours 

 on end. The nest we have usually found in brier 

 bushes, and when they haunt gardens they may build 

 in gooseberry bushes, or in some thick hedge. The 

 eggs are beautifully blotched over with brown and 

 greyish tones. " Prettichaps " was a quaint old name 

 for the bird, still sometimes heard. This is not a 

 common bird, but we have heard his voice often near 

 Selborne. 



The whitethroat and lesser whitethroat, the black- 

 cap, and the garden- warbler make up the genus 

 Sylvia (with rare visitors, the orphean warbler, and 

 the barred warbler, from southern Europe). 



In the large and musical family which includes these 

 warblers and the nightingale, the robin redbreast and 

 the quiet little hedge-sparrow find a place which 

 perhaps might rather surprise them if they knew it ! 



