leaves ; small caterpillars are also a welcome addition to its fare. During the 

 fruit season the Whitethroat may often be seen in our gardens regaling itself 

 upon the currants and raspberries ; it also eats the small wild fruits found 

 in the woods and thickets. About the beginning of May the Whitethroats 

 have all paired and are on the look-out for a nesting-site ; this is usually in 

 some thick piece of tangle, some bush overgrown with bindweed, or the bottom 

 of some dense hedge, among brambles and briers. It is a rather slight, 

 loosely built structure, and so thin that one can generally see through it ; it is 

 usually built of fine grass-stems and tiny roots, and is generally lined with 

 rootlets ; it has often a little wool round the outside of the nest, woven in 

 among the grass that forms the edge of the nest. It is usually rather deeper 

 than is common with the nests of birds of this genus, and may generally be 

 distinguished from them by this peculiarity ; it is a very pretty, daintily placed 

 structure, hanging, as a rule, 1 like some piece of network among the stems of the 

 tall weeds, or perched among the branches of some thick, tangled bush. 



The eggs laid vary in number from four to six. There are three distinct 

 types of eggs. The first is pale green in ground-colour, somewhat sparingly 

 marked with olive-green spots and a few very dark brown specks of colour; 

 the second has the ground-colour buffish white, and most of the spots are 

 underlying and of a pale purple grey colour; the third type, to which usually 

 belong the handsomest eggs, has the ground-colour pale bluish white, blotched, 

 spotted, or mottled with yellowish brown or olive markings, with large under- 

 lying spots of violet grey and a few almost black specks of colour. Some 

 specimens are much more handsomely marked than others, and there is a 

 great variation in the character and placing of the markings. In some eggs the 

 spots are nearly all at the large end, and are confluent, forming a large blotch 

 of colour ; on others they form a zone round the egg, or are evenly distributed 

 over the whole surface ; while again on some specimens the spots are so faint 

 as to be almost invisible. They vary from '80 to 70 inch in length, and from 

 '65 to -50 inch in breadth. 



The birds are very careful of their treasure, and betray great anxiety should 

 the intruder come too close, sitting on some spray with their heads down and 

 tails up in the air, scolding vigorously, and hissing like a cat, or hopping rest- 

 lessly about the twigs, uttering their curious alarm-note ' chzzz-chzzz-cha-cha.' 

 The young birds are fed principally on small caterpillars and insects of various 

 kinds, and are tended by their parents for some time after they have left the 

 nest. The Whitethroat does not leave our shores till late in September or 

 the beginning of October, and generally performs its migration at night. 



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