30 THE WARBLERS 



THE WHITETHROATS, BLACKCAP AND 

 GARDEN-WARBLER 



[BY E. L. TURNER] 



WHEN Nature's spring season of Grand Opera commences, few per- 

 formers would be more missed than the four warblers included in 

 this chapter, should they absent themselves at the appointed time. 

 Even the most casual wayfarer would feel an unwonted silence, 

 though he might not be able to tell just which of the singers had 

 failed, for the garrulous chattering of the whitethroats makes every 

 copse and hedgerow alive with music, while the garden-warbler's 

 richer notes, and the mellow, fluty song of the blackcap so often 

 mistaken for the nightingale, whose understudy he is all these 

 together produce that undercurrent of sound which delights the soul 

 of every bird-lover, though his knowledge may not be sufficient to 

 enable him to discriminate between one species and another. 



They are a very difficult quartette for the student to differentiate. 

 The whitethroat is the most prominent, because he is constantly slip- 

 ping in and out of tangled hedgerows, chattering gaily as he hunts for 

 food ; twisting, turning, standing on tiptoe in order to seize some nice, 

 juicy caterpillar ; always graceful and dainty, the distinctive white 

 throat revealed at every bend of his lithe body. He must chatter 

 whether there be an audience or not ; often hurling himself into the 

 air with a joyous outburst of real song, which, in the case of some birds, 

 may equal that of the garden-warbler. This song consists of a short 

 prelude, then a ripple of sweetness, varying in quality considerably with 

 the individual. Occasionally only long and patient watching, if the 

 singer happens to be hidden from view, has enabled me to determine 

 which of the two warblers was really singing. Sometimes I have seen the 



