96 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



that I have not been able satisfactorily to trace it. On the east 

 coast it is equally local and uncertain in its appearance. Dr 

 Turnbull includes it in his " Birds of East Lothian," as a very 

 rare visitant. In that county it had previously been observed by 

 my friend Archibald Hepburn, Esq., one of the most observant 

 ornithologists Scotland has yet produced. He communicated his 

 notes on the habits of the species, as observed by himself, to 

 Professor Macgillivray, in whose larger work on birds they were 

 published. 



Dr Saxby has found the Lesser Whitethroat in Shetland on 

 several occasions, but I have no record of it from counties on the 

 mainland north of the Forth. 



This bird is much less demonstrative in its habits than the 

 preceding species, passing a comparatively quiet life in the hedge- 

 rows, which it enlivens by its sweet and simple strains. Mr 

 Hepburn states that in East Lothian it frequents wheat and 

 bean fields, devouring great quantities of aphides, and thus proving 

 itself a useful friend to the farmer. He has also seen it freely 

 devouring red currants. 



No trace of this species has yet been discovered in any of the 

 Inner or Outer Hebrides. 



THE WOOD WARBLER. 

 SYLVIA SYLVICOLA. 



ALTHOUGH a much less common bird with us than the next species, 

 the Wood Warbler is a familiar and well-known visitant to the 

 woods and thickets of the southern and midland counties, extend- 

 ing to the north of Argyleshire, in all of which districts it breeds. 

 I have myself obtained the nest in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of Glasgow, and it has also been taken by Mr Sinclair in Inverkip 

 Glen, Renfrewshire. Mr William Hamilton informs me that he 

 has found the nest at Minard, on the banks of Upper Loch Fyne, 

 and Mrs Blackburn, in her Book of Drawings of British Birds, 

 mentions having met with the bird on the banks of Loch na Nuagh, 

 in Inverness-shire, which is perhaps the most northern locality for 

 it on the west coast. Mr Hepburn informs me that, in 1847, he 

 found it in considerable numbers about the Falls of Foyers, in 

 the same county. In the eastern counties its distribution is even 



