138 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



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YOUNG THRUSH 



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the spring migrants, remaining to nest, 

 and leaving again in the autumn. Some, 

 as the B1..U K-CAP, WHITE THROAT, CHIFF- 

 CHAFF, GARDEN-, WILLOW-, and WOOD- 

 w A RULERS, frequent woods, hedgerows, 

 and gardens ; whilst others, as the SEDGE- 

 and REED-WARBLERS, are found only 

 near water affording sufficient shelter in 

 the shape of reed-banks or osier-planta- 

 tions. 



The BLACK-CAP and GARDEX-WARB- 

 LER rank as songsters of no mean talent, 

 being held second only to the nightingale. 

 As if by common consent, the two former 

 never clash, so that where black-caps arc 

 common there are few garden-warblers, and 

 vice versA. 



Most of these birds build a typical 

 cup-shaped nest of dried grasses, lined 

 with finer materials, and placed near the 

 ground; but that of the I\i I i>-\\ ARI:I I:K 

 is a most beautiful structure, the dried 

 grass of which it is made bring woven 

 an mnd some three or four reed-stems, 

 making it seem as if the latter had, in 

 growing up, pierced the sides of th 



and are then, captured and sold in large numbers 

 for food in the Russian markets, and occasionally 

 are sent over to London. 



Passing over a small group of comparatively 

 uninteresting American birds known as " Green- 

 lets," we come to the WARBLERS, a group which 

 constitutes one of the largest families of birds ,,f 

 the Old World. The species included in this 

 family vary greatly in their characters, so that 

 it is by no means easy to give diagnostic char- 

 acters, whereby they may be readily distinguished 

 from the Fly-catchers on the one hand or the 

 Thrushes on the other. The Thrushes, houever, 

 as a group, may be distinguished from the 

 Warblers by the circumstance that in the former 

 the young have a distinctive spotted plumage, 

 differing from that of the adults, while the 

 young of the Warblers are not so marked, 

 their plumage differing but little from that of 

 their parents. 



More than twenty species of warblers are 

 included amongst British birds. Although some 

 of them are but rare and accidental visitors to 

 Britain, others are amongst the commonest of 



J. T \.i.-n. 



B I. A C K B I R D 



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