1O4 THE WARBLERS. 



happiness as their betters ; but there is nothing about 

 them to catch the imagination of the historian and 

 they will never be famous. I have been perplexed as 

 to how I should deal with them in these papers. To 

 attempt to describe each species is out of the 

 question, for there are many, and they are mostly 

 so like each other that even the title " ornitho- 

 logist " does not qualify one to distinguish them at a 

 distance. If you can distinguish them with certainty 

 when you have them in your hand, you will fully 

 deserve the title. Jerdon was all in confusion about 

 them. With the aid of the large collections now in 

 the British Museum they are supposed to have been 

 successfully unravelled, and those who please may 

 study them in Mr. Oates's book. The best I can do 

 here is to try to help the ordinary lover of birds to 

 know a Wren Warbler and a Tree Warbler when he 

 sees them, and to particularise a few species which 

 have enough of distinctive character to separate them 

 from the crowd. 



To begin with the Wren Warblers, they are small, 

 dingy birds with long tails, which go about among 

 bushes and rushes and reeds, exterminating little 

 insects. They enjoy this life so much that they 

 moved the envy of Charles Kingsley, and you may 

 almost recognise them from his description 



I would I were a tiny, browny bird from out the south, 

 Sitting among" the alder holts and twittering by the stream. 



I would put my tiny tail down and put up my tiny mouth, 

 And sing my tiny life away in one melodious dream. 



But you must .not suppose that the said " melodious 

 dream " is a high class composition from a musician's 

 point of view. These little birds are not without a 

 humble conceit of their vocal powers, all the same, 



