312 Birds. 



streams and water-courses, which give birth lo numerous osiers, wil- 

 lows and alders, upon which trees he is most frequently met with. His 

 food appears to consist principally of small insects, which are found 

 enrolled within the opening buds of different forest trees, and perhaps 

 sometimes of the tender leaves themselves. Like the wood warbler 

 [Sylvia sylvicola) it builds a domed nest on the ground, near a dyke 

 or hedge-bank, generally beside a stream where willows are thickly 

 scattered, or on the outskirts of an orchard, where food may be easily 

 obtained. A small round hole is left for the bird to enter the nest, 

 and it is composed of dried grasses, lined with feathers, which render 

 it beautifully soft and warm for the young brood. The eggs are of a 

 delicate rosy white, dotted all over with minute spots of light red. 

 The young leave the nest about the end of May, or the beginning of 

 June, and the parents and family keep together for some time after- 

 wards, visiting localities wherever insects abound. They devour num- 

 bers of young green grubs and caterpillars, and appear particularly 

 partial to flies which infest roses and garden flowers, relieving them 

 of myriads. 



Wood-wm'hler [Sylvia sylvicola). The wood- warbler, resembling 

 in many particulars, in its habits and manners, the willow-warbler 

 [Sylvia Trochilus) and the chiff'-chaff* [S. hippola'is), is now proved to 

 be a distinct bird, indeed we include both species in our ' Fauna Mel- 

 bourniensis.' He prefers an open and champaign country, dotted at 

 intervals with small knolls and diversified with hedge-row timber. Tall 

 isolated trees are his favourite haunts, especially the oak and elm, the 

 tops of which he delights to frequent ; and he generally appears just as 

 the latter is opening into blossom. His song is always given from some 

 elevated object, beginning in a loud clear voice, which gradually low- 

 ers in tone to its close. He arrives in this neighbourhood about the 

 16th or 17th of April, but in 1843 he reached us by the 12th, during 

 a N.E. wind, and in very early seasons I have heard him by the 9th. 

 On his first arrival he frequents the copses and plantations at some 

 distance from the village, appearing to prefer the outer branches of 

 the oak, willow or hawthorn, and there, hopping nimbly from spray to 

 spray, he may be seen performing many nimble evolutions, as he ex- 

 amines, with the minuteness of the titmice, the partly expanded bud, 

 accompanying his operations with a full, loud, clear song, of " iwee,^* 

 ^Hwee^'' uttered many times in succession, which is in unison with the 

 season, and particularly fresh and delightful. The nest is commenced 

 the first week in May : it is placed on the ground, in a tuft of coarse 



