64 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



a diminutive egg of the Pied Wagtail ; a fourth, somewhat larger, is similarly 

 coloured, but spotted and splashed as if with ink ; then there is a dark mottled 

 greyish form, almost like a small egg of the Titlark ; a pale ruddy variety with 

 greyish mottling, reminding one of the Spotted Flycatcher's egg, and a greenish 

 white egg with scattered brown mottling speckled with blackish, and vaguely 

 resembling some eggs of Passer ; rarely its eggs are almost like enlarged editions 

 of those of the Lesser Whitethroat, but with the surface between the blackish 

 markings splashed and speckled with olive brown. The above are a few of the 

 forms taken by myself, and it would not be difficult to add to the list, indeed an 

 assiduous collector never seems to come to the end of variation in this egg, 

 either in size, form, ground-tint, or pattern : I have one almost like that of the 

 Dartford Warbler, but nearly spherical ; others which, had I not taken them my- 

 self, I should have declared to be large eggs of the Sedge Warbler laid by an 

 old bird, yet I took them from a most typical flimsy Whitethroat's nest, built in 

 nettles : they are almost large enough for eggs of the Garden Warbler. Many 

 even of the best collections give a very poor idea of the modifications to which 

 this bird's eggs are liable, and the published descriptions seem, so far as I have 

 been able to judge, to have been copied from one ornithological work into another, 

 most authors speaking of specimens being pale buff, or buffish white, spotted with 

 yellowish brown and with violet- grey shell-markings : it would be rash to assert 

 that such eggs never existed, but I must confess that I never saw anything 

 approaching this variety among the hundreds which I have examined. 



This species is very largely insectivorous and its young are reared solely 

 upon this diet, caterpillars, spiders, and crane-flies being its favourite articles of 

 food ; in the early fruit season it also robs the raspberry canes and currant-bushes, 

 and is not averse to elder- and blackberries ; early in August it is said also to eat 

 the unripe milky corn. 



The "Nettle-creeper," or "Jolly Whitethroat" as the rustics call this bird, 

 has a short but clear and melodious song, and may frequently be heard in the 

 country lanes singing from the top of a hedge or one of the lower branches of a 

 tree ; sometimes you may see him from simple exuberance of joy soaring upwards 

 after the manner of a Pipit and presently flinging himself downwards to the 

 hedgerow ; if you approach to watch him more closely he slips over to the other 

 side of the hedge, rising and falling just ahead of you until convinced of 

 your pursuit, when he wheels round and returns perhaps to the point from which 

 he started ; near to which, perchance, his nest may be concealed. The call-note is 

 a clear phwcet-phwcct-phweet, but its alarm-note is a harsh hissing sound. 



The Whitethroat is well-known as a cage-bird and is not especially delicate, 



