THE BIRD-LIFE OF LONDON 



descending scale, finishing so softly as to be scarcely audible. 

 It makes itself as equally at home in a large garden or 

 orchard as amongst the hedgerows and coppices and shrub- 

 beries of more rural spots. It is a most persistent singer 

 too, and throughout April and May makes its haunts melo- 

 dious as one bird answers another from the leafy bowers. Its 

 call-note is equally pleasing a plaintive weet, long-drawn 

 and musical, and uttered most pertinaciously when you 

 are near the nest. The males continue in song until the 

 summer, ceasing in July and August, during the moult, 

 and regaining it after that event, unlike any other of their 

 kindred. The food of this species is largely composed of 

 insects and larvae, but small fruit and soft berries are 

 eagerly sought as soon as ripe. The Willow Warbler 

 pairs soon after its arrival, and eggs may be found from 

 the end of April onwards to June. The nest is mostly 

 made upon the ground, amongst sheltering herbage, but 

 in exceptional cases it is placed at some distance above it. 

 It is semi-domed, and made of dry grass, bits of moss, 

 withered leaves, and roots, and lined with hair and large 

 quantities of feathers. The five, six, or seven eggs are 

 white (sometimes with a yellowish tinge), blotched, 

 spotted, and freckled with pale brownish red. Parties 

 of Willow Warblers are not unfrequently met with in 

 the London area in autumn, on passage, and many seen 

 here at that season and in spring are merely L migrating 

 over the city. 



The adult Willow Warbler has the upper parts olive- 

 green, brightest on the rump ; the paler eye-stripe is very 

 ill-defined ; the wings and tail are brown, with paler 

 margins. The under parts are yellowish white, suffused 

 with buff on the breast and flanks ; the under surface 

 of the wings and the metatarsi are yellow. Bill dark 

 brown, paler below ; tarsi and toes brown ; irides brown. 

 Length 4^ inches. The young are browner above and 

 yellower below than their parents. 

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