The Wood-warbler. 167 



for the Wryneck a bird (he said) much plainer 

 than the French Heckle, and apt to hiss at you if 

 you try to take its eggs. I imagine that French 

 is here contrasted with English to indicate superior 

 brightness and dapperness of plumage. 



There is yet one bird of our woods or rather 

 of one wood, thickly planted with oaks of which 

 I have as yet said nothing. I had long suspected 

 his presence in that wood, but my search for him 

 was always in vain. One day in May, 1888, I 

 luckily turned down a little by-path which led me 

 through a forest of young ashes, and brought me 

 out into a wide clearing carpeted with blue-bells 

 and overshadowed by tall oaks. Here I heard a 

 sibilant noise, which in the distance I had taken 

 for the Grasshopper Warbler ; though I had had 

 doubts of it, as it was not prolonged for more 

 than two or three seconds. Now also I heard, 

 from the thick wood beyond the clearing, a series 

 of plaintive notes, something like those of the 

 Tree Pipit, and this stopped me again as I was 

 turning away. I listened, and heard these notes 

 repeated several times, feeling more and more 

 certain each time that I had heard them before in 



