364 INSECTI VOILE. 



with all its might, and when there are other birds singing 

 near, it appears to sing against them, though only when they 

 are tolerable singers. The lark or the hedge-accentor excite 

 it, but not the bunting. 



The nest is loosely formed of the withered stems of those 

 annual plants which trail under hedges and bushes, lined 

 with finer fibres, or, if the place furnish them, with hairs. 

 The eggs are four or five in number, of a greyish-white colour, 

 mottled with deeper grey and dull brown. 



At that season of the year when caterpillars are so apt to 

 disfigure the hedges and hedge-rows, and spoil the orchards 

 and gardens, the white-throats are very serviceable birds. 

 Caterpillars are their principal food, and the feeding they 

 collect for their young while in the nest ; and as the birds are 

 so numerous and widely distributed, the numbers which they 

 destroy are very great. But the supply of caterpillars does 

 not last beyond the nesting time; and the foliage of the 

 hedges, bushes, low trees, and other vegetables, which the 

 birds are so instrumental in preserving, become comparatively 

 barren pastures some time before the birds take their depar- 

 ture. They then throng to the gardens ; and though they 

 continue useful in the destruction of the later swarms, as 

 well as in- that of the insects which are depositing their eggs 

 in the garden plants, they levy contributions on all the early 

 small fruits. In market gardens, especially, where these are 

 interspersed with hedge-rows and patches of tangled brake, 

 they do a great deal of mischief; but still, if the service 

 which they have previously rendered be fairly thrown into 

 the other scale, it is probable that the balance of good is on 

 their side. 



THE BRAKE WARBLER, OR LESSER WHITE-THROAT 



garrula). 

 The lesser white-throat is a smaller bird than the other; 



