62 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



something more than a russet brown bird which only croaks or tooeys; a Nightin- 

 gale which sings is a jo}^ for ever, but a silent Nightingale is a fraud. 



There are very few birds which sing their natural song when hand-reared, 

 and the Nightingale is not one of them: whether the Robin is, I do not know; 

 I tried to rear a nest of these once, but foolishly gave them some chopped raw 



^*- meat, which killed the entire half dozen in one day. The best mixture for 

 successfully rearing all soft-food birds is as follows : — Four parts ants' cocoons, 

 three parts yolk of egg, one part dry bread-crumbs ; the whole mixed very moist 

 at first, but given dryer as the birds get older : the young of Butcher-birds, 



^ Crows, &c., should have raw meat also, because flesh is to them a natural article 

 of food. 



This species concludes the Thrush-like birds. {Ttirdina). 



Family— TURDWyE. Subfamily— SYL VIIN^. 



The Whitethroat. 



Sylvia cinora, Bechst. 



BREEDS abundantly in Scandinavia and Western Russia as far north as lat. 

 65°, and in the Ural Mountains up to lat. 60°, southwards throughout 

 Europe to the Mediterranean. It winters in the Canaries and Northern Africa, 

 passing through N.E. Africa on migration and extending its wanderings do-rni 

 the west coast to Damaraland. Eastwards it occurs in Asia Minor, where it is 

 abundant in the nesting-season, in Palestine where it is partly resident, in Persia, 

 Turkestan, and south-west Siberia. 



In Great Britain it is very common and generall}' distributed, being most 

 rare in the extreme north of Scotland, and unrecorded from the Outer Hebrides. 



The adult male in breeding plumage has the head, neck and upper tail- 



