ll'arblcrs in Italy ami (i recce. 245 



Aristotle is of all naturalists, down to the timr of 

 Willoughby and Ray, the most exact and trust 

 worthy, and that when he uses an adjective to 

 describe a bird or its voice, he means something 

 exact and definite, and is not talking loosely. 



Before we try to come to a conclusion about 

 the axav&V, let us note that Aristotle mentions 

 another small bird, the axafdoXXiV, which, from 

 the name, we may guess to have been one of the 

 same kind as the acanthis. This bird builds a 

 nest which is round and made of flax, and has 

 a small hole by way of entrance. Now let us 

 observe that Italy and Greece are swarming for 

 the greater part of the year with a variety of 

 those small brown or dusky-coloured birds which 

 naturalists roughly call ' warblers ' birds for the 

 most part apt to creep and lurk about in thickets 

 or small trees, and having voices more or less 

 shrill, which may very well indeed be called 

 Xiyupai. In England we have some species of 

 this order which are abundant in the summer ; 

 e.g. in Oxford, the chiffchaff, willow-wren, sedge- 

 warbler, and reed-warbler the two former of 

 which build spherical nests on the ground with 



