TWO WAYSIDE BIRDS 



1007 



Not only do different fishes vary very 

 much in size, but the same fish shows dif- 

 ferences in waters far apart. When I say 

 " the same fish," it is perhaps more cor- 

 rect to regard these as different " races," 

 which means that, while they are not suf- 

 ficiently unlike to make them two separate 

 " species," the difference in size consti- 

 tutes a distinct race. When, many years 

 ago, I lived on the shores of the Baltic, 

 I noticed that the Herrings were much 

 smaller than those of our east coast, but 

 I did not then know that they never grow 

 any larger. In like manner, the Mackerel 

 of the Mediterranean are also much smaller 



than our own. Here, again, it is a matter 

 of race, for in the teeming waters round 

 Constantinople there are millions of tiny 

 Mackerel, known as " Ciri," which the 

 native fishermen catch in tons ; and there 

 are also enormous Mackerel, which, every 

 few years, bank in such enormous masses 

 that it is computed that no fewer than 

 a million are taken every night for a 

 month. The Plaice is another fish which 

 shows a wide range in size, and the Baltic 

 also has a small kind of Plaice which 

 never grows any bigger. Possibly, the 

 small size is a question of a shortage of 

 food. F. G. Aflalo. 



THE GREATER WHITETHROAT 

 AND YELLOW-HAMMER 



By BENJAMIN HANLEY 

 With Photographs by the Author 



THE Whitethroat, an excitable little 

 brown bird, is one of the com- 

 monest of our warblers, and is 

 to be found by almost every wayside 

 during the summer 

 months, for, like 

 other warblers, it is 

 a migrant, spend- 

 ing the winter 

 months in South- 

 ern Africa, arriving 

 here toward the 

 middle or end of 

 April and leaving 

 early in September. 

 It is an interest- 

 ing little bird, and 

 not the least notice- 

 able trait is its 

 habit of dancing or 

 fluttering along the 

 top of a hedge 

 or bush with head 

 feathers raised in 

 the form of a crest 

 and throat puffed 

 out, often flying 



into the air a little way to sing a pretty 

 but short song, and then, as suddenly, 

 dropping again. 



For nesting sites, a nettle bed, wild 



NEST AND YOUNG OF WHITETHKOAT. 



