LESSER WHITETHROAT. 41 
LESSER WHITETHROAT. 
Synvia curruca, Linn. 
Pl. IX., figs. 22, 24. 
Geogr. distr.—Generally in Europe during the summer, arriving 
late in March, in April, or, according to Newman, as late as the 
beginning of May, but retiring before the winter to Africa; occurs in 
Asia as far east as Dauria and China; not uncommon in Great 
Britain. : 
Food.—Insects, berries, and small fruits. 
Nest.—A neat and very compact, though not always strongly-built, 
cup-shaped structure, of stout bents intertwined with a few rootlets, a 
little fine wool, and spiders’ web, and lined with fine bents, rootlets, 
and a little horsehair. 
Position of nest.—In uncut bushes, tangled brambles and hedges 
on the outskirts of woods, in groves or shrubberies. 
Number of eggs.—4-5. 
Time of nidification._IV-V1; May. 
I have always found this a shy bird, requiring a very 
slight inducement to desert its nest; on two or three 
occasions when I have found the nest to contain only a 
single egg, and have substituted a small marble sufficiently 
like to deceive most birds, I have subsequently found the 
marble ejected and the nest deserted by the bird, no second 
egg having been laid. The nest is a much firmer, and 
usually smaller, structure than that of the common White- 
throat, and the eggs are so distinct that there is no danger 
of mistaking them for those of any other British bird; for, 
though a little like some eggs of the Blackcap in colouring, 
they are much too small to be taken for them. 
The nest appears to be comparatively rare, for, though I 
generally come across two or three in a season, they are 
not unfrequently deserted after the first egg has been laid ; 
it even appears as though this species were almost as 
jealous of the discovery of its nest as the Wren; once or 
twice when I have again visited a nest after the lapse of a 
week I have found only the second egg deposited ; it more 
frequently happens, however, that, owing to its conspicuous 
position, the nest has been pulled out and trampled on by 
some village urchin. 
