NESTING OF WILLOW- WARBLER AND CHIFFCHAFF. 155 



NESTING HABITS OF THE WILLOW- WARBLER 

 AND CHIFFCHAFF. 



By H. S. Davenport. 



I cannot find words which will adequately express the 

 amazement I felt on perusing the editor's remarks anent the 

 above subject in the September issue of The Ornithologist. 

 In this connection we are confronted with two common 

 summer migrants, concerning whose normal nesting habits 

 I am prepared to show that the most widely-divergent 

 opinions are held, and consequently I am glad to think that 

 the question now stands a chance of being thoroughly venti- 

 lated, and I only hope the discussion will not pall until some 

 unimpeachable settlement of the true facts has been definitely 

 put on record. It is quite the case that I wrote to Mr. Swann 

 expressing my astonishment at and dissent from his teaching 

 with regard to the Willow- war bier's nest being located, as 

 he alleges in his recently-published Handbook, "rarely on 

 (the) ground," and I fully anticipated his replying that it was 

 " an unaccountable oversight " — the identical phrase used in a 

 letter (in connection therewith) to me by a bird-nesting 

 friend. That Mr. Swann should stick to his guns, however, 

 and further volunteer that he is prepared to admit that "the 

 nest of the Chiffchaff is commonly placed on the ground," 

 comes to me, figuratively speaking, as a bolt from the blue ! 

 From my own individual point of view, there is no question 

 at all, as voluntarily suggested, of too nice a discrimination 

 on Mr. Swann's part, for I consider that when the lower 

 surface of a nest is even less than half "six inches from the 

 ground," it cannot be correctly defined as "on the ground." 



Before proceeding further, however, I may briefly state 

 that, during upwards of thirty years' experience in manifold 

 parts of the kingdom, I have never known a Chiffchaff's nest 

 to be built on the ground, and only on one solitary occasion a 

 Willow- warbler's to be built off it. This language, surely, 

 will not lend itself to misinterpretation. Indeed, with regard 

 to the Willow-warbler's nesting site, it seems to me that it 

 might almost as accurately be characterised as in the ground 

 as on it. I have, as may readily be imagined, found scores 



