54 ACTIVE AND RESTLESS HABITS. 



branch to branch, chasing each other, and catching the 

 gnats and small flies which are called forth by the fitful 

 sunshine. In the summer they feed on the aphides which 

 infest trees and plants, as well as on small caterpillars, flies, 

 and moths. The shady woods, hedge- rows, and bushes, are 

 their common places of resort, and their nest is generally 

 placed on or near the ground in a hedge-bank. It is com- 

 posed outwardly of dried grass, dead leaves, and moss, and 

 is lined profusely with feathers. Instances have occurred 

 of its being raised two feet or more from the ground. One 

 was found in dead fern at this elevation at least, and 

 another in some ivy against a garden wall. The eggs are 

 usually six in number, white, spotted sparsely with dark 

 purplish red. 



According to Yarrell, ' The Chiff-chafF is nowhere so 

 abundant as the Willow Warbler ; it is, however, found, 

 though few in number, in all the southern counties, from 

 Sussex to Cornwall and Wales, and it extends as far north 

 as Northumberland.' Macgillivray, however, finds it in 

 the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, where it arrives, he 

 says, from the 13th to the 28th of April, a week earlier 

 than the Willow Wren, 



Which it resembles, not in form and colour only, but in its active 

 and restless habits. On the other hand, it remains with us to a 

 later period than that species, generally delaying its departure until 

 the beginning of October. Individuals indeed have been known to 

 remain all the winter. Thus Montagu mentions two that were seen in 

 his garden about Christmas ; and I have in my collection a specimen 

 shot near JSTewhaven, in a turnip field, in January 1836. In spring 

 it is first observed among bushes in sheltered places, in nursery 

 grounds and gardens, searching among the twigs for insects, pecking 

 the buds in quest of larvae, and sallying forth occasionally on wing in 

 pursuit of a passing gnat, or other fly. As it proceeds it emits, at 

 intervals, its notes, which are shrill, rather weak, and seem to resemble 

 the syllables cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep, chee, rather than chiff-chaff, 

 cherry-churry, as some have interpreted them. It nestles from the 

 beginning to the middle of June, and seems to rear two broods in 

 the season. 



' It should be borne in mind,' says Yarrell, l that the 

 British birds to which the term hippolais has usually been 

 attached in the works of British naturalists, is not the hip- 

 polais of continental authors.' 



