OBSERVATIONS AND QUERIES. 187 



Nesting Habits of the Willow-warbler and Chiffehaff. — In sup- 

 port of the Editor's contention of the Chiffehaff nesting on the ground, I 

 may mention the fact of finding a nest, containing six eggs, placed on the 

 ground in a double hedge, in the Harrow district. I have also found one or 

 two others quite near the ground, without actually resting on it. During a 

 few days' stay at Aberdeen in 1891, I found Willow-warblers' nests placed 

 on the ground on the outskirts of the pine woods at Hazlehead, but at Ter- 

 towie, near Buxburn, on the Grampians, I found a small plantation of firs 

 literally teeming with Willow-warblers' nests placed in the lower lateral 

 branches of the young trees, especially the spruce fir. Some were unfinished, 

 some finished, but no eggs, and others with eggs of varying numbers. I 

 should say no mistake is possible about the identity, as the Chiffehaff is 

 unknown in the district. — H. T. Booth (30, Homestead Road, Fulham, 

 S.W.). 



On referring to my note books I find that the only two Chiffehaff 's nests 

 I have found were both about a foot from the grouud. Of very many 

 Willow Wrens' nests of which the situation is recorded, the great majority 

 were on the ground, often in the side of banks. There were only three ex- 

 ceptions — one six to ten inches above the ground, in a clump of coarse grass, 

 another in a yew tree four or five feet from the ground, and a third about 

 fifteen feet high on the top of an old (wood pigeon's ?) nest in a dead fir. 

 Of those not recorded certainly all would be on the ground. — John P. 

 Thomasson (Woodside, Bolton). 



I very well remember the discussion in The Field, about the position of 

 the nest of the Chiffehaff, and the impression left on my mind was that the 

 bird usually placed its nest at some little height from the ground. I do not 

 myself claim any extensive personal experience of the nests of these two 

 species, but I have found the nest of the Chiffehaff on a bare stem of ivy 

 growing on a wall, about two feet from the ground ; and I have never found 

 a, Willow Wren's nest which was not either on the ground (except when built 

 among old matted grass and prevented by this from coming within an inch 

 or so of actual contact with the ground) or partly underground. I found 

 two nests on the ground (one on the side of a ditch) in Arctic Norway last 

 June. Neville Wood, as long ago as 1836, while stating that the Willow 

 Wren's nest was always placed on the ground, mentioned several other 

 situations for the nest of the Chiffehaff, although he thought that it was 

 ' ' more commonly on the ground, in a thick tuft of grass, and very often in 

 a certain herb, with a sweet-smelling flower." In the fourth edition of 

 " Yarrell," nests two feet from the ground are mentioned. 



Mr. Davenport points out a difference between the alarm-notes of these 

 two birds. The differences between the alarm-notes, and also the call-notes 

 of the Chiffehaff and Willow Wren, have exercised me for years, and I find 



