38 THE WARBLERS 



warbler is begun at the bottom, and consists of fine dried grass 

 stalks on the outside, with finer strands often ending in the dead 

 flower-spikes inside, and then a lining of horsehair ; but it is often so 

 insecurely placed, and so frail altogether, as greatly to endanger the 

 safe upbringing of the family. This fact may account for the late 

 broods, too late to be successful, that are sometimes found : for this 

 bird rears only one family in the summer. 1 



The garden-warbler, like its congeners, begins a good many nests 

 before finally deciding on the right situation, and is very liable to for- 

 sake if disturbed or too closely watched. Many are begun by the 

 male, who, perhaps more than is the case with any of the other Sylviae, 

 does the hard work and brings most of the rough material ; while the 

 hen also a characteristic trait in this group arranges the interior, 

 with feminine precision, and directs operations. Sometimes the nest 

 is completed in a few days, but now and again time seems no object 

 and the pair while away several days in love-making and other amuse- 

 ments. The love of tree-creeping, for instance, is very pronounced in 

 some garden-warblers. I watched a pair for several days in May 1909. 

 They flew to the base of a large oak and commenced hopping up in a 

 clumsy manner when compared with an adept in this sort of sport like 

 the tree-creeper ; their efforts had to be assisted by many flutterings 

 of the wings, accompanied by a flirt of the tail and a loudly uttered 

 "tech." The whole performance looked like a poor attempt at 

 mimicking a past-master in the craft. Nevertheless they did succeed 

 in scrambling up the trunk as efficiently perhaps as any bird, not 

 supplied by nature with climbing irons like those of the tree-creeper 

 and nuthatch, could be expected to do. This game went on during 

 intervals of nest-building; but when family cares commenced, all 

 frivolity ceased and the pair settled down diligently to business. They 

 fed their young on insects, which were often caught on the wing, thus 

 proving themselves to be far more accomplished flycatchers than 

 tree-creepers. 



1 Naumann, Vogel Mitteleuropas, ii. 167. 



