WOOD WREN, CHIFFCHAFF &^ SEDGE WARBLER. 117 



The Chiffchaff frequents both the lower bushes and 

 the branches of the tallest trees, showing in this respect 

 a variance to the habits of the Willow Warbler. He is 

 a far shyer species, too, and flies rapidly off to the 

 deepest solitudes should you alarm him. By sitting- 

 quiet and motionless, however, he will approach you, and 

 reward your patience with a glimpse of his fragile little 

 form. 



I have long thought that here, at least, the Chiff- 

 chaff's race is dying out, and that the Willow Warbler 

 is replacing him. Season after season he seems to occur 

 in lessening numbers, and his loud cries disturb his 

 favourite haunts less frequently year by year. His shy 

 and retiring habits — for in one so closely related to the 

 Willow Warbler we should expect a corresponding 

 degree of trustfulness — also seem to show that his 

 presence in these parts is drawing to a close. On the 

 other hand, the Willow Warblers proportionately increase, 

 and almost every spray sends forth their plaintive songs 

 of gladness. I can almost trace an instance in these de- 

 licate sylvan songsters where Nature's fierce and hidden 

 contests are exposed to view — favouring one race for the 

 time being, and causing the other to pass slowly and 

 silently, and it may be finally, away. The grain of 

 favour is in the balance of the Willow Warbler, and the 

 Chiffchaff is undoubtedly affected by it. Like the red 

 man who roamed for untold ages through the wilds of 

 America, its race, in its now existing form, is passing 

 away. 



Like most migratory warblers, the Chiffchaff is a 

 late breeder, and May is well advanced ere we find its 

 nest. It is often situated amongst the herbage on a 

 bank, under the wide trailing brambles up the hedgerow 

 sides, or far from man's habitation in the thickest w oods. 



