iO BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR EGGS AND NESTS. 



and builds in our gardens and shrubberies as frequently as in 

 wilder resorts, but always in places where there is thick foliage 

 and plentiful means of concealment. It is a very shy bird and 

 very unwilling to be gazed at. If it sees you watching it, you 

 soon lose sight of it as it hops and twists from spray to spray 

 into the inner and shadiest recesses of its haunt. Its nest, too, 

 is studiously concealed, and Mr. Yarrell says it will leave two or 

 three just commenced nests in succession, on light grounds of 

 suspicion that it has been noticed in its labours. The nest is a 

 benty, and saving for the ties of wool or cobweb, a slightly 

 compacted edifice, lined with hair and fine fibres, and contains 

 four or five eggs of varying colour and mottlings white, greenish 

 or tinged with a peculiar shade of faint red, being the ground- 

 colour, with markings of a reddish brown. Fig. 6, plate 



61. GARDEN WARBLER (Curruca hortensis). 

 Pettychapa, Greater Pettychaps. Inferior to the Blackcap in 

 song, as the Blackcap is inferior to the Nightingale, only not at 

 so great a distance. Still it is a sweet songster. It comes to us 

 to breed, and frequents thick hedges and the covert afforded by 

 our shrubberies and pleasure-plantings in gardens. Tie nest, 

 like the Blackcap's in materials and detail, of dry grass-stalks or 

 bents loosely twined but bound together with wool, #c., and 

 lined with hair and fibrous roots, may be found among rank 

 growth of various herbage, or in a bush, or in a row of rodded 

 peas. The usual four or five eggs are of muddled- white, staiaed and 

 spotted with greenish brown, lighter or darker. Fig. 7, pfate III. 



62. WHITE-THROAT (Curruca cinered). 

 Nettle-creeper. Another pleasant singer, but with occasional 

 harsher notes and a chiding one, not unlike the Sedgebird's : when 

 uneasy or irritated. This is the usual Haychat of the country 

 lads, and fully as often called the Nettle-creeper; the former 

 name being due to the fabric of its nest, the latter to its habrts 

 of twining in and out of the leaves and coarse herbage which 

 abound among its haunts. Little description of the nest is needed, 

 except that it seems slighter, and is thinner at the sides than 

 those last named, but still it is not less compact. The eggs vary 

 a good deal in appearance, but there is still such a family likeness 

 among them that they are easily recognizable by most egg- 

 fanciers. Green, in different shades, is the predominating colour. 

 Fig. 8, plate III. 



63. LESSER WHITE-THROAT (Curruca sylvielld]. 

 Not so common a bird nearly, as the last, and rising higher in 

 the bushes and shrubberies it frequents than it. It sings low and 



