THE LESSER WHITETHROAT. 65 



if supplied with plenty of insect food ; but, if this cannot be provided, he is un- 

 able to stand an English winter in an unheated aviary, and without question an 

 aviary, not a cage, is the only confinement to which any Warbler ought to be 

 subjected : doubtless, like all these birds, the Whitethroat does in time become 

 reconciled to the close imprisonment of a cage ; but no aviculturist, unless a great 

 worshipper of bird-shows, would take much pleasure in watching its cramped 

 movements in such an enclosure. 



The Whitethroat will sing freely in an aviary, but whether it ever does so in 

 a cage I cannot say ; a male captured on its arrival in this country, probably 

 would do so, in time ; but a hand-reared bird would be unlikely to give this 

 satisfaction to its owner. It is therefore almost certain that caged Whitethroats 

 are rarely kept excepting for the show-bench ; they would hardly be selected for 

 their brilliant plumage, and their song would certainly be heard to the greatest 

 advantage, to say the least of it, in an aviary. To keep so restless and sprightly 

 a bird as the Whitethroat in close confinement, merely for the sake of the slight 

 profit which it may bring to its owner in the way of prizes, is not only a cruelty, 

 but a meanness, of which no real bird-lover, who took the trouble to reflect 

 upon it, could well be guilty. 



Family TURDID&. SiibfamilyS YL VIINsE. 



THE LESSER WHITETHROAT. 



Sylvia curruca, 



THE European race of this species ranges northwards almost to the limit 

 of forest-growth ; southwards it breeds throughout nearly the whole of 

 temperate Europe, to Southern Europe it is chiefly a summer visitor, but 

 Howard Saunders states that "a few pass the winter to the east of Malaga." 



