388 BRITISH BIRDS. 



houses, and somewhat local, very rarely being seen in the forest, its lively 

 song prevents it from being overloooked. Its favourite resort is dense 

 underwood, or plantations of young trees. Its song resembles that of the 

 Whitethroat, some of its notes being quite as harsh as those of that 

 bird ; but the finest parts are almost as rich as the warble of the Blackcap. 



Its call-note, according to Naumann, resembles the syllable cliek ; and 

 its alarm-note is said by the same authority to be a snarling rhar, which, 

 when pronounced quickly, sounds like r-r-r-r-r. It also resembles the 

 Whitethroat in its habits and in its harsh call-notes, which frequently 

 resound from some tangled mass of briars and thorns on the margin of a 

 pool or ditch; and also, like the Whitethroat, it tosses itself up from the 

 top of a bush to catch a fly in the air or warble a snatch of song. Shy, 

 active, and skulking, the Barred Warbler is a difficult bird to shoot, and 

 generally a difficult one to find when shot. 



The food of the Barred Warbler is principally insects ; but in autumn, 

 according to Naumann, it lives largely on various fruits, such as currants, 

 elder-berries, &c. It is a bird very rarely seen on the ground ; and in 

 passing from tree to tree its flight, like that of its congeners, is undulating. 

 The Barred Warbler is, according to Naumann, one of the earliest birds 

 to leave for southern climes, many departing in August before the moult 

 is completed. 



The nest is not like that of most Warblers, a slender structure, so 

 loosely made as to be semitransparent, but is somewhat bulky and compact. 

 It is composed of dry grass-stalks and roots, with generally some small- 

 leaved plants, cobwebs, thistle-down, or other woolly material mixed with 

 it. Outside it is rough enough ; but inside it is very neat and round, 

 rather deep, and lined with a few fine roots, cobwebs, or horsehair. The 

 eggs are usually four or five in number, and in rare instances six; they 

 are laid in the last week of May. The nest is well concealed, and is usually 

 built in a thorn-bush not far from the ground. It is said to be some- 

 times built almost on the ground; and an instance is recorded in the 

 ' Journal fur Ornithologie/ (1859, p. 455), of a nest of this species 

 which was built on the topmost twigs of a birch 25 feet from the ground. 



The eggs of the Barred Warbler are very characteristic, and cannot easily 

 be confounded with those of any other bird. Although much larger, they 

 very closely resemble in colour and markings eggs of the Grey Wagtail. 

 The ground-colour is dull huffish white ; the underlying spots are grey, 

 and, though somewhat obscured by the overlying layer of ground-colour, 

 they appear distinct and bold enough when carefully examined. In the 

 greater number of eggs the overlying spots are either absent altogether or 

 are so small and pale as to be observed with difficulty but in some cases 

 though rarely, they are tolerably well defined and are brown, and much 

 more numerous than the underlying spots (which they almost conceal), and 



