LESSER WHITETHROAT, o21 
inserted a figure and description of it in the first supple- 
mentary volume of his General Synopsis of Birds, page 
185. This warbler visits many parts of England every 
year, arriving about the third week in April. In many 
of its habits it closely resembles those of the three war- 
blers which immediately precede it in this work, is inferior 
to them in the quality of its song, but is equally active 
and restless. It frequents high and thick hedges, shrub- 
beries, orchards, and gardens, and is occasionally to be 
seen and heard in lofty trees. The louder notes of this 
bird have nothing particular in their tone to recommend 
them; but in a wild state, if approached with sufficient 
caution to prevent alarm, or when kept in confinement, 
a low, soft, and pleasmg whistle, may be heard, which is 
almost incessant, so much so as to have induced the ap- 
plication of garrula, and babillard, as terms of specific 
distinction. 
The food of this species is also very similar to that 
sought for by the Common Whitethroat,—namely, insects 
in their various states, the smaller fruits of many different 
sorts, for which it visits the gardens, and later in the 
season it feeds on the berries of the elder, and some others. 
It is not, however, so easy to preserve this bird in health 
during confinement as the Common Whitethroat. 
The nest is frequently placed among brambles or low 
bushes: it is slight in structure, generally formed on the 
outside with strong bents, lined inside with finer bents, 
fibrous roots, and horse-hair. As this bird is readily dis- 
tinguished from the more Common Whitethroat by being 
rather shorter, as well as more slender in its form, so are 
its eggs rather smaller, measuring but eight lines in length, 
by six lines in breadth; the ground colour white, sparingly 
spotted and speckled, principally at the larger end, with 
VOL, I. Y 
