LESSER PETTY CHAPS. 339 



not a little, for though his notes be few as compared 

 with those of the nightingale, there is a native wildness 

 in them which the nightingale cannot equal, and which 

 is exceeded by no bird but the lark. The nightingale 

 is an instrument of great compass, and volume, and 

 tone ; but in all its varied notes and cadences, it is 

 but one instrument. The petty chaps is but a note or 

 so upon each, but it is a whole band. One note 

 shivers in the ear with all the piercing sharpness of the 

 fife, and the very next, which is prolonged and drawn 

 out with a swelling modulation, is as soft as could be 

 breathed from flute or flageolet. Then there is the 

 expanse and richness of the orchestra, heard in the 

 soft hour, when the mind is tuned to meditation. 



There is another migrant that comes earlier and 

 remains later than any of those that have been noticed, 

 and which, as one of its synonymes is the " less petty 

 chaps," has been by some considered as a warbler; 

 but its nest is formed not in the careless manner that 

 is characteristic of the warblers, but in the neat and 

 careful manner of the wrens ; and it has not the varied 

 and melodious song of the warblers, neither have the 

 eggs the markings in two colours upon a differently 

 coloured ground, which are common to those warblers 

 that have been noticed. It is, therefore, properly a 

 wren ; and as it remains from spring to late in the 

 autumn, it is not properly a summer bird, and there 

 are some doubts whether it may not remain all the 

 winter in some of the warmer parts of England. It is 

 found in both divisions of the island, but most abun- 

 dantly in the south. It is a very little bird, about the 

 same size as the colemouse ; it is greenish brown 



