DARTTORD WARBLER. 4l 



pleasantly when you are near enough to hear it, and very inces- 

 santly, but its more frequently heard notes are rather harsh. The 

 nest, found among low bushes and brambles, is like the White- 

 throat's, and the four or five eggs laid in it are white, speckled, 

 most at the large end, with ash or light brown. Fig. 9, plate HI 



64. WOOD WARBLER (Sylvia sibilatrix}. 

 Wood Wren, Yellow Wren. This bird was long confounded 

 with the Willow Wren to be named next. It comes to us for 

 the summer, the males (as is the case with so many of the 

 Warblers), coming first by several days. It is abundant enough 

 in some well-wooded parts of the kingdom, and its song is only 

 called such by courtesy. It builds a domed nest ; that is one 

 covered in above, and with a side entrance ; on the ground amid 

 grass or weeds. It is made of grass, dead leaves, moss, and 

 lined with hair and soft grass. The eggs are six in number, 

 white, and very much speckled and spotted with dark red- 

 purple. Fig. 10, plate III. 



65. WILLOW WREN (Sylvia trochilus). 

 Willow Warbler, Yellow Wren, Scotch Wren, Hay -bird, Huck- 

 muck, Ground Wren. A well known little bird to the observant. 

 It sings " a soft and pleasing " song, and is a lively little fellow, 

 in incessant motion. Very restless and uneasy too, when vou are 

 near its nest, and particularly if the young are hatched!. The 

 nest is domed, externally like the one last named, but always 

 lined with feathers, which the last never is. It is built on a bank 

 or bankside, among grass or other herbage, and contains five to 

 seven eggs, white, with many small speckles of red not very dark. 

 There is an instance on record, in which this bird did not leave 

 its nest though it had been bodily removed from its site on 

 the ground, and even before any eggs were laid or the nest 

 itself completed one of the most remarkable cases of the kind 

 known. Fig. 11, plate III. 



66. CHIFFCHAEF (Sylvia hippolais). 

 Lesser Pettychaps, Least Willow Wren. An "early bird" 

 this is in coming to us in spring time, and able and willing enough 

 to take its substitute for the " worm." The two syllables of its 

 name, differently accented, form its song. Its nest is like that of 

 the Willow Wren, with the addition of a few dead leaves outside 

 and abundance of feathers inside, and is also placed on (or very 

 near) the ground on a hedgebank. The Chiffchaff lays six eggs, 

 white, with specks of daik purplish-red. Fia. 12, plate III. 



67. DARTFORD WARBLER (Melizophilus provincialis). 

 A bird which is scarcely known except on some of the furze- 

 growing commons of the South, especially Kent and Surrey. 



