106 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



that have reached me as to its presence. Still, it is a bird one cannot 

 overlook if it is present, and I am inclined to think that it is not. So far, 

 the Nightingale, which breeds freely, especially in the lanes leading to the 

 woods, is the best member of the Sylviidse that I have myself identified ; 

 but I was much excited once over the story of a shrewd and by no 

 means over-confident observer, who stated that in a certain coppice he 

 had seen two small Warblers of the Yellow family, like ordinary Willow- 

 Wrens, but with strikingly light-coloured rumps, and a song that he did 

 not recognize. This information was given at a meeting of the College 

 Natural History Society, but not by a boy, and I suggested that perhaps 

 the strangers were Bonelli's Warblers, having in my mind's eye a vivid 

 recollection of the lemon rump of a skin shown me by Mr. Gurney at 

 the Norwich Museum some years before. I went twice myself to see 

 the birds, but I had not the finder with me, and it is doubtful whether 

 I ever reached the spot. 



These woods are no less satisfactory from the point of view of the 

 entomologist. The Purple Emperor has at all events been seen in them, 

 and the Purple Hairstreak is common, while as for White Admirals, I 

 have seen three captured at one sweep of the net ! The Marble White also 

 occurs in small numbers; the large Pearl-bordered Fritillary is common. 

 The Pearl-bordered Likeness was also common once, and two soulless 

 hirelings from London are said to have captured three hundred in a week. 

 Since then none have been seen. 



