The Coming of the Birds 39 



in the great general wave of migration which sets 

 in before the middle of the month, and brings us 

 most of the summer migrants in hot succession. 

 The whitethroat is a warbler unusually tolerant of 

 dry and dusty spots for that verdure-loving family, 

 while the sedge- warbler haunts the water-sides. 

 But they invite comparison each year by a common 

 quality of chattering obtrusiveness in their music, 

 and by the punctuality with which they appear in 

 their respective haunts at the moment when there 

 is just enough verdure to hide them. Both are 

 abundant and widely distributed birds, and we 

 are seldom far from the voice of one or the other 

 wherever there is a luxuriant undergrowth of 

 verdure. Whitethroats are especially conspicuous in 

 low hedges mixed with briars and nettles, and in the 

 patches of scrub which often border the road. 

 When they arrive, the new tufts on the brambles 

 are expanding, the quicks are breaking out into 

 green, and the nettle-shoots are beginning to rise 

 into the foliage and screen their old, dry stems. 

 Among this still scanty cover the whitethroats slip 

 with a mouse-like motion, occasionally tossing into 

 the air above the thorns, and continually pouring 

 out their chiding, irregular song. When they first 

 come, their last year's nests are still conspicuous 

 among the sparse verdure ; but the new growth 

 shoots so quickly that by the end of April they have 

 new nests nearly finished in safe hiding. When 

 the weather after their arrival is uninterruptedly 

 dry and warm there may be eggs in the hair-lined 

 nests before May Day. Sedge-warblers in April play 



