Willow- Warbler and Chiff-Chaff. 47 



sanction of his clear resonant voice. We may 

 grow tired of his two notes he never gets be- 

 yond two for he sings almost the whole summer 

 through, and was in full voice on the 25th of 

 September in the same year in which he began 

 on March 23rd ; but not even the first twitter of 

 the Swallow, or the earliest song of the Nightin- 

 gale, has the same hopeful story to tell me as this 

 delicate traveller who dares the east wind and the 

 frost. They spend the greater part of the year 

 with us ; I have seen them still lurking in shel- 

 tered corners of the Dorsetshire coast, at the 

 beginning of October, within sound of the sea- 

 waves in which many of them must doubtless 

 perish before they reach their jonrney's end. 

 And now and then they will even pass the winter 

 with us : this was the case with one which took 

 up his sojourn at Bodicote, near Banbury, in a 

 winter of general mildness, though not unbroken, 

 if I recollect right, by some very sharp frosts. 



The Willow-warbler follows his cousin to Eng- 

 land in a very few days, and remains his com- 

 panion in the trees all through the summer. He 

 has the same brownish-yellow back and yellowish- 



