A LIVELY AND PLEASANT SONGSTER. 101 



wards the rump a red tinge prevails, and there is a light 

 red patch on each of the upper tail coverts ; a whitish band 

 extends from the nostrils over the eye; the throat is a 

 beautiful ultramarine blue, margined beneath with dusky 



BLUE-THROATED WARBLER. 



spots ; after which succeeds a patch of orange red, with 

 white spots below, and then another band of blue, succeeded 

 by a line of black, edged with white, beneath which is red 

 again, fading off into whitish, which occupies the whole of 

 the under parts. The song of this bird, which is not 

 uncommon in various parts of the Continent during the 

 summer and autumn, is said to be lively and pleasantly 

 modulated, sometimes poured out when it is on the wing, 

 and often heard in the dusk, or in the early part of the 

 night. It frequents low moist places covered with grass, 

 willows, and low bushes, among which its nest is placed ; 

 this is composed of withered stems and leaves, lined with 

 finer materials of the same nature. The eggs are of a 

 greenish blue colour, unspotted, nine-twelfths of an inch 

 long, very like those of the common Eedstart and Hedge 

 Sparrow. 



While singing, this bird, if undisturbed, perches on the 

 tops of the brushwood or low trees ; but on the least alarm 

 it conceals itself among the low cover. It does not exhibit 



