THE WHITETHROAT. 63 



coverts smoky grey, the remainder of the upper parts greyish brown, deepest on 

 wings and tail, the wing-coverts and innermost secondaries broadly margined with 

 rufous ; the outer tail-feathers paler than the remainder, broadly bordered and 

 tipped with white. Under surface white, shaded on the breast with vinous-buff 

 and on the flanks with buff; under wing- coverts and axillaries smoky grey: bill 

 dark brown, the lower mandible paler, feet pale brown, iris hazel. The female 

 differs in the absence of the grey head and upper tail-coverts, and vinous breast. 

 After its autumn moult the male resembles the female. Young birds are more 

 rufous brown. 



The Whitethroat reaches us about the second week in April, though in mild 

 seasons I have met with it earlier ; it takes its departure early in September. It 

 is essentially a bird of the thicket, hedgerow, shrubbery or garden : in open spots 

 overrun with blackberry, honeysuckle, stunted hawthorn, long rank grass and 

 nettles you are almost certain to hear its cheerful little song or its harsh alarm 

 note. Though rarely met with in dense woods, it abounds in those narrow strips 

 of wood known in Kent by the names of shaivs and shaves; yet in lanes, and 

 little frequented country roads where the hedges are untrimmed, and fringed at 

 the bottoms with nettle and goose-grass, the Whitethroat is most in evidence ; 

 here, among the nettle heads, the flimsy nest is often suspended ; not that the 

 nest is always flimsy, for I have taken examples almost as stoutly built as that 

 of a Sedge Warbler ; nor is the nest always situated in so apparently perilous a 

 position as a bunch of nettles, for I have often taken it from the top of a clipped 

 hawthorn hedge partly overgrown with ivy ; but it is most frequently found low 

 down in bramble or dense but loose vegetation and more often than not near the 

 foot of a thick hawthorn hedge. 



The nest is usually lightly constructed of dried stalks of plants and grasses 

 with here and there knot's of spider's silk or sheep's wool ; the lining is composed 

 of fine bents and horsehair : it is generally very deep. Of ten nests in uiy 

 collection, obtained during two consecutive years, two are interesting ; one on 

 account of its unusual size, the diameter of the interior of the cavity measuring 

 nearly three inches, and thickly lined with black hair ; the other has the walls 

 rather thickly edged with sheep's wool intertwined with the grasses. 



The eggs, which usually number from four to five, rarely six, vary a good 

 deal in ground-tint and in marking ; the best known type is greenish, indistinctly 

 mottled with greyish olive, the larger end zoned with spots and specks of slate- 

 grey and brown ; another not uncommon variety resembles the egg of the Garden 

 Warbler excepting for a belt of scattered slate-grey spots towards the larger end, 

 a third variety is stone grey with slightly darker mottling and looks almost like 



