17() NATURAL HISTORY 



forth very sweet, but inward melody, and expresses 

 great variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior 



are made of a dirty flesh colour, being probably very incorrect, as having 

 been evidently drawn from a stuffed specimen, in which the natural co- 

 lour of the leg would not remain. Those of the lesser whitethroat are 

 of a dark and blackish lead colour, by which the bird may be at once dis- 

 tinguished from the whitethroat, of which the legs are yellowish. In 

 other respects Werner's specimen of Sylv. Curruca accords sufficiently with 

 our Sylv. silviella, though the shape and attitude are very ill given, but this 

 is the fault (and the usual fault) of the stuffer, not of the artist. On the 

 whole I am confident that Sylv. silviella is to be struck out of the ranks in 

 books of ornithology, and set down as a synonym to Sylv. Curruca ; and 

 that Sylv. Curruca, the blue-gray or lesser whitethroat, must take its place 

 as a British bird common in the neighbourhood of gardens ; or rather, as 

 Curruca will probably be adopted as the generic name for the fruit-eating 

 Sylviadte, it must be called Curruca silviella. 



The division of the genus Sylvia to which this bird belongs, and which 

 eat fruit and vegetables, are not in general pugnacious like those that live 

 upon insects ; but the blue-gray, although the smallest species, is more 

 quarrelsome than the rest. It likes to have undisputed possession of the 

 pan of victuals, when disposed to feed. I have seen the little tyrant 

 seize a large pettychaps by the neck and actually throw it behind him by 

 a jerk of the head : but, as bullies generally are, it was very cowardly 

 when resisted or attacked by another; when persecuted a little by a red- 

 start which it had offended, it would make its escape, screaming as if in 

 the last agonies. 



I may take this opportunity of mentioning that birds have their resent- 

 ments, and treasure up the memory of an offence, and that some of them 

 are as fond of practical jokes as monkeys are. The redstart above men- 

 tioned, preserved its antipathy to the little blue-gray, which arose from its 

 having once presumed to be saucy, as long as they lived together. I have 

 noticed the commencement of a feud between two birds which has lasted 

 for months, and rendered it necessary to separate them, originating in the 

 one having a feather in its bill which the other wished to take from it, 

 before which offence they had lived in perfect amity. Pulling tails is 

 the most usual practical joke amongst them. I have a nonpareil, or 

 painted finch, which often sits demurely upon a perch behind the other 

 birds, and from thence makes excursions to pull their tails, poising itself 

 upon the wing like the kestril or windhover hawk, underneath another 

 bird, while it pulls its tail, and almost drags it from the perch, regain- 

 ing its own post before the other can steady itself or look round. It is 

 very fond of molesting, in this manner, a beautiful red bird, which had 

 lost a foot before it reached this country, and to whom the joke is on that 

 account particularly inconvenient ; and I have been amused at observing, 

 when the nonpareil went down soon after to feed, the red bird look down 

 upon it with an aspect that spoke as plain as words could express it, You 

 rascal, you are the fellow that pulled my tail. It is very singular that 

 birds of the genus Sylvia reared from the nest, in confinement, are very 



