LESSER WHITETHROAT. 341 



ash-grey and light brown. The eggs in number are four or 

 five ; and Mr. Jenyns has remarked that incubation com- 

 mences about the 20th of May. 



The Lesser Whitethroat is by no means an uncommon 

 bird around London, but is observed to be much more 

 plentiful in some seasons than it is in others. South and 

 west of London it visits Hampshire, Wiltshire, Devonshire, 

 Somersetshire, and Gloucestershire ; is rare in Cornwall 

 and Wales, and has not, I believe, been identified as a 

 visitor to Ireland. It frequents Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, 

 Norfolk, the inclosed parts of Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, 

 Yorkshire, and Durham, in which latter county it fre- 

 quents strong and thick whin or furze bushes. Further 

 north in Northumberland it becomes more rare, according 

 to Mr. Selby ; but extends, though probably in still more 

 limited numbers, to Scotland. Mr. Rennie, who appears 

 to be well acquainted with this bird, mentions having seen 

 it at Musselburgh Haugh, near Edinburgh, and also in 

 Ayrshire. It visits Denmark, and arrives in Sweden by 

 the 20th of May ; it also visits the southern part of Russia, 

 as well as the more temperate and warmer parts of the 

 European continent, including Spain and Portugal, but 

 quits them, and even Genoa and Italy, in September. It 

 is common in Sicily and in Egypt. M. Temminck says it 

 is abundant in Asia ; and Colonel Sykes obtained examples 

 in the Dukhun, which only differed from some English spe- 

 cimens in having a reddish tint on the white of the under 

 surface ; but Mr. Blyth mentions, in some remarks on this 

 species in the Naturalist, and also in a note to an edition of 

 White's Selborne, that he has seen this rosy tint on speci- 

 mens obtained in this country. I may here also quote, in 

 corroboration, part of a letter received from my kind friend 

 the Rev. W. F. Cornish of Totness, who is very successful 

 in his treatment of our small singing birds in confinement, 



