" The bird may be found holding forth day after day at the same spot when its mate 



is sitting." 



THE WOOD WREN 



T 



HE Wood Wren, or Wood 

 Warbler as it is very fre- 

 quently called, is a migrant 

 arriving in the south of 

 England about the end of 

 April, and leisurely travel- 

 ling north to its favourite 

 breeding quarters, which 

 it reaches some ten days or a fortnight 

 later. I hear the males singing for a 

 few days in the Surrey woods nearly 

 every spring, but do not believe that 

 they stay to breed, at any rate in my 

 part of the county. The return journey 

 in a southerly direction is undertaken 

 during August and September. 



The species, although everywhere local, 

 is partial to old woods containing tall 

 trees, and is found most numerously, 

 according to my experience, in Wales 

 and the North of England. 



24 18 



Young naturalists will have no diffi- 

 culty in distinguishing it from its relative 

 the Willow Wren, with which it is most 

 likely to be confused, if they will re- 

 member that it is a trifle larger, has a 

 broader band of yellow over the eye, is 

 greener on its upper parts and whiter 

 underneath. It builds a domed nest 

 on the ground beneath a sheltering tuft 

 of grass or dead bracken, and the struc- 

 ture is in every way very similar to the 

 nests of the Willow Wren and chiffchaff, 

 with the exception of the fact that the 

 interior is lined with fine dead grass and 

 horsehair, and not with feathers. 



The eggs, numbering five or six, are 

 white in ground colour, marked all over 

 with dark purplish brown and violet 

 grey spots. Young Wood Wrens are 

 considerably yellower than the chicks 

 of the Willow Wren. 



