THE HEDGE WARBLER. 373 



tops of hedges, bushes, and willows, and raise their song, to 

 which there is a very peculiar prelude. First, there is a sort 

 of broken chirp, then a retiring tinkle, and after that the 

 song, consisting of three distinct notes, but modulated into 

 many more. 



Like most of the early visitants, those birds come in small 

 flocks; but they separate soon after their arrival, form their 

 pairs, and commence their building, which is rather a labo- 

 rious operation. If the weather prove kindly, they go on 

 well ; but if frost set in, as it often does (on the east coast in 

 the first or second week in April), they suffer considerably 

 from the cold, and probably also from hunger : several are found 

 dead if such weather continue, and the song of the remainder 

 ceases for a time. 



All the warblers, when their song has ceased, have a pecu- 

 liarly soft chirp, as they fly about, either on the wing or from 

 spray to spray; and though they resemble each other much 

 more in that than in their proper songs, yet an attentive ear 

 may distinguish them even by that. Those that have varied 

 song generally shut their single chirp by a sort of consonantal 

 turn, while the single-noted ones do not, unless their first 

 note has that sort of ending. Thus the willow warbler's 

 single note is tweet, the wood warbler's is twee; and there is 

 a shake in that of the finer warblers. 



THE HEDGE WARBLER, OR LESSER PETTY-CHAPS, 



(Curruca Hippolais). 



The description of this bird also has been partially antici- 

 pated in that of the wood wren. 



Though the smallest of our warblers, being generally about 

 four inches and a half in length, and about two and a half 

 drachms in weight, this is the most hardy, coming as early as 

 March, remaining as late as October; and, if the autumn is 

 mild, remaining as a straggler in the warmer parts of the 



