CHAPTER XVII. 



THE WHITE-THROAT. 



With none of our migratory birds, our spring visitants from 

 southern lands, is the lover of the country more familiar than 

 with the White-throat, which, with its nest, is here so beautifully 

 and livingly depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir. 



This bird, with its many names — White-throat, Peggy- 

 white-throat, Peggy-chaw, Charlie-mufty, Nettle-creeper, 

 Whishey-whey-beard or Pettichaps — comes to us in April, about 

 the same time as the cuckoo and the swallow ; the male bird, like 

 his cousin the nightingale, coming before the female, but he 

 does not make himself very conspicuous till the hedges and 

 bushes are well covered with leaves ; then he may be found in 

 almost every lane and hedge the whole country over. 



As soon as the female is here, and the birds have paired, the 

 business of nest-building begins, and they may then be seen 

 flying m and out of the bushes with great alertness, the he-bird 

 carolling his light and airy song, and often hurling himself, as 

 it were, up into the air, some twenty or thirty feet, in a wild, 

 tipsy sort of way, as if he were fuller of life than he could hold, 

 and coming down again with a warble into the hedge, where 

 the little hen-wife is already arranging her dwelling in the very 

 spot probably where she was herself hatched, and her ancestors 

 before her, for ages. For I must here remark that one of the 



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