C U RR U C A. 



215 



white, the common white, large red, long-clustered 

 red, the large Champagne, and the white crystal. 

 They all delight in rich loamy soil ; but will succeed 

 any where if the ground be deep, moderately manured, 

 and somewhat sheltered. 



The black currant is a distinct species, and also a 

 native of Britain. It is cultivated and increased by 

 cuttings, as are the foregoing ; but the method of 

 pruning is somewhat different. Young plants are 

 permitted to throw out ten or twelve branches from 

 the top of the stem : these are allowed to rise to the 

 height of three or four feet without cutting back. 

 From the lower parts of these many shoots are pro- 

 duced annually : these bear the fruit and only require 

 thinning, none of the young shoots ever being topped. 

 As a constant succession of fruit-bearing shoots rise 

 from below, the topmost ones which have risen too 

 high, are cut out to allow the lower shoots room, and 

 by this means the tree acquires its due form and 

 requisite height. 



All the currants may be trained to walls or as espa- 

 liers : in which situations they are most conveniently 

 covered from birds and insects, and preserved for 

 table a month or two after the regular season of 

 such fruit. 



CURRUCA (Auctorum), Warbler. A genus of 

 small fruit-eating and insectivorous birds, belonging 

 to the Dentirostral order, and Sylviadoe, or pettychaps 

 family, and of which the common blackcap (already 

 described in its alphabetical situation) may be cited 

 as a typical example. The bill, in the more charac- 

 teristic species, is ruthe.r stoutish, at least for birds of 

 this family, and is somewhat compressed : the gape 

 almost smooth ; the nostrils basal, lateral, oval, and 

 exposed ; wings with the first quill-feulher very short, 

 the second inferior to the fifth, and the third and 

 fourth generally the longest ; legs having the tarsi 

 longer than the middle toe ; toes short, and formed 

 for perching ; hind toe strong ; the sole dilated and 

 broad ; claws much curved, grooved at the sides, 

 and very sharp, that upon the hind toe strongest, and 

 of greatest length. 



This is one of the numerous and very distinct 

 natural divisions which were formerly brought to- 

 gether and included in the immense Linnaean genus 

 Motacilla, a huge and incongruous division, which 

 was first reduced by Dr. Latham, who restricted that 

 term to the wagtails, properly so called, but who 

 again confounded, in his most comprehensive genus 

 Sylvia, every small bird of a certain size which agreed 

 in possessing a comparatively small and slender bill, 

 however in other respects dissimilar. That designa- 

 tion also, in its turn, has now been limited to a 

 particular group, the members of which exhibit some 

 degree of resemblance in all their characters, and 

 which therefore forms a most natural division ; and 

 the nightingales, the wheatear, the redstarts, the 

 accentors, the aquatic warblers, wrens, goldcrests, 

 and a host of others equally dissimilar (including the 

 present group), all of which were formerly arranged 

 together under the one name Sylvia, are now distri- 

 buted into various independent genera, each known 

 by a separate name, and distinguishable by well- 

 marked and obvious characters. 



There are three principal divisions of European 

 warblers, that is to say, of small, soft-billed, mostly 

 migratory, insectivorous birds, which chiefly seek their 

 food about the foliage of trees and bushes ; for the 

 term warbler, as usually and technically applied in 



works on natural history, has little or no reference to 

 the vocal powers of these birds, a few species wii*ch 

 excel in song having imparted this name to the whole 

 group of which they are members. If we set aside, 

 in the first place, the different wagtails and pipits ; 

 secondly, the robin and wheatear tribe ; and thirdly, 

 I he different titmice and allied genera, each of which 

 forms a very natural sub-family of the Sylviance, we 

 have still, apart from the flycatchers and other tribes 

 which usually take their insect food upon the wing, 

 three leading subdivisions of small, migratory, ar- 

 boreal, and insectivorous European birds, each of 

 which contains a considerable number of species, and 

 which, together, constitute what is called the Sylviadee, 

 or typical sub-family of the Sylviadce. The first of 

 them, comprising what are commonly called the 

 different " willow-wrens," a number of little delicate 

 birds with green plumage, and peculiar in their form 

 and characters, will be fully described in the article 

 SYLVIA ; the members of the second, which are 

 inhabitants of aquatic situations, breeding among the 

 reeds, willows, and sedges, and which are in other 

 respects very different from the rest, will be men- 

 tioned under the generic head SALICAIUA ; and the 

 third, the Sylvan, or fruit-eating warblers, as they are 

 appositely termed, a most natural group, now gene- 

 rally recognised under the name CUKRUCA, are the 

 birds we are now about to speak of. These three 

 generic divisions, with one or two exceptions only, 

 comprise the whole of the European species, which, 

 in books on natural history, are usually denominated 

 " warblers." We would restrict the term altogether 

 to the last mentioned genus. 



The most typical of the fruit-eating warblers are 

 inhabitants chiefly of woods and thickets, orchards 

 and gardens, some of which are less so, however, 

 being found more along the hedges. They are all 

 songsters, and most of them warble for a long time 

 continuously, raising their voice as they proceed, and 

 some of them invariably terminate with a loud and 

 liquid flow of pleasing melody. They are mostly 

 migratory birds, some of them being found in summer 

 as far north as Lapland ; but none are known to 

 occur in winter, even in the most southern of the 

 European countries, except as stragglers ; a few of 

 them, however, in the north of Africa, are more 

 stationary. They feed upon various insects (more or 

 less, according to the species) ; and they are very 

 expert at capturing the winged ones as they fly by, 

 but they never dart after insects like flycatchers, 

 following them upon the wing, though this is some- 

 times done by all the Sylvias and Salicarice. The 

 writer of this has kept all the British species in 

 confinement, and when tame, and suffered to fly loose 

 about a room where there were plenty of flies, of 

 which they are all extremely fond, he has often had 

 occasion to observe, that, however quick they were 

 at catching all that flew within their reach, they had 

 not the slightest notion of following them into the 

 air, as a willow-wren or redstart would have done. 

 They invariably refuse earth-worms, and many sorts 

 of caterpillars, but some they are extremely fond of; 

 this, however, depends much upon the species, the 

 garden warbler devouring several which are rejected 

 by the whitethroat, and vice versa. In autumn they 

 subsist more upon fruit, and various berries, of which 

 they are very great devourers ; some of them, indeed, 

 feeding on little else during their whole stay with us, 

 ivy and privet berries, and the like, supplying the 



