100 British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



Palestine in winter and on migration; but it passes the winter chiefly in Africa 

 from the Nile south-westwards as far as the Cape, and south-eastwards to the 

 Transvaal and Natal. A few, however, winter in the South of France and Spain, 

 and a few pass the summer in N.W. Africa. 



In Great Britain the Willow- Warbler is pretty generally distributed and 

 abundant, though in Cornwall, Wales and Ireland only locally common; to the 

 Orkneys, Shetlands and Faeroes it is apparently a mere straggler. 



This species is a much brighter and prettier bird than the Chififchaff: in 

 spring it is olive-green above with the rump yellower ; the wing-coverts are olive- 

 brownish, with greener margins, the flights brown with narrow whitish tips ; and 

 yellowish outer webs ; tail feathers brown, with whitish inner and yellowish outer 

 edges ; a superciliary yellowish streak from the bill over the eye and ear- coverts : 

 under parts yellowish, the chin, centre of throat, abdomen and under tail-coverts 

 white ; the breast and flanks olivaceous yellow or olivaceous buff ; the axillaries, 

 under wing-coverts and thighs yellow ; flights and tail below ashy-grey : bill brown, 

 darkest on the ctdmen, palest below ; feet gre3dsh horn-brown, iris hazel. The 

 female nearly resembles the male. After the autumn moult the colouring, especially 

 in birds of the year, is so much more yellow, that a neighbour sent round to me 

 in 1894, to inform me that one of my Canaries had got loose and was Hying about 

 my garden. I was much tickled when I caught sight of it, flitting about a privet 

 hedge at the back of my covered aviary, catching flies. The popular notion is 

 that every yellow bird is a Canary. 



The Willow- Wren (so-called) reaches the south of England about the end of • 

 March, or the first week of April, leaving this countrj^ again about the middle of 

 September. Soon after its arrival and for about a month prior to its departure it 

 may be daily seen in most suburban gardens: I generally see it regularlj- for a 

 week in April and during the latter part of July and beginning of August ; but 

 rarely, if ever, during the remainder of the year unless I go farther afield, to furze- 

 clad commons, copses, woods, plantations, or the more secluded parts of large 

 gardens. 



I know of no bird more graceful and active than the Willow-W^ren ; acrobatic 

 and confiding as a Coal-tit, yet with a more easy lighter flight and greater control 

 over itself when on the wing; restless exceedingly, but most beautiful in all its 

 agile movements, whether it be seen clinging to the upright bars of an iron garden 

 archway, to the feathery spraj- of some conifer, or flitting with rapid undulating 

 flight in pursuit of some small winged insect : even when, on rare occasions, it 

 drops to the earth in pursuit of some coveted morsel, its Robin-like hop is in 

 keeping with its neat trim figure. 



