WHITETHROAT. 407 



until the beginning of May. As might be expected, it arrives a little 

 later in Scotland, not being usually seen there until early in May. 

 It will also be observed that the males come a little before the females. 

 The Common Whitethroat is a bird of the thickets, and loves those places 

 where vegetation is intergi'own and tangled. You may often hear its 

 harsh call-notes from the thickly matted hedgerows, or catch a hurried 

 glimpse of it in the garden and the shrubbery. It is also one of the 

 commonest birds on waste pieces of land over which there is a luxuriant 

 growth of shrub, briar, bramble, and nettle ; whilst even on the moorlands 

 it is often seen gliding restlessly about the stunted thorn-bushes. The 

 ^Yhitethroat is a bird of the lanes, and is not found so often in thick 

 woods and plantations ; nor does it perhaps so commonly mount into the 

 high branches of the trees as the Blackcap, but prefers the lower shrubs 

 and bushes. 



The Whitethroat is a restless little bird, incessantly hopping from twig 

 to twig — sometimes hiding from view, at others poised on a topmost spray. 

 Athough by no means a shy bird, still it is one that likes to keep out of 

 sight to a great extent ; and very often the trembling of a twig and the 

 harsh call-note are the only signs of its presence as it rapidly threads its 

 way up the hedgerow buried in the green foliage. But it is also some- 

 times seen in the tallest trees, especially those standing in hedges, into 

 which it will drop down if alarmed. In the tall branches its actions are 

 just the same as near the ground. It hops quickly from branch to 

 branch, is rarely still a moment, and very often flutters into the air to 

 catch passing insects. Soon after his arrival the male bird may be 

 heard to sing. It will be noticed that most birds, even if they be 

 usually shy and wary, are muqh more tame when warbling forth their 

 songs than at any other time. The Whitethroat is no exception, and 

 when in the act of singing is perhaps one of the boldest and most trustful 

 of our Warblers. He will often perch on a tall twig and warble out his 

 song within a few yards of where you are standing, the feathers on his 

 head erected, and his throat swollen and quivering with the exertion. 

 He is so full of music in the early summer, that sometimes as he 

 flies from hedge to hedge he will soar up into the air above his line of 

 flight and pour out Lis song like a Pipit or a Lark. I have watched the 

 Whitethroat start from a bush and make an excursion into the air for at 

 least fifty yards, singing all the time, every now and then checking him- 

 self with a peculiar jerk of his partly expanded tail, and finally returning 

 to his old perching-place. The song, although short, is in parts very sweet; 

 but as the notes are so often repeated, it is apt to become monotonous. 

 The Whitethroat may be heard long before dawn ; and sometimes it sings 

 late in the evening. Its alarm-note is almost exactly represented by the 

 sound of chsh, when sounded low resembling chsh. The bird also appears 



