62 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



times on the top of a bush, sometimes low down. When the sun 

 first rises thej' are fond of sitting on dead branches in order to 

 preen their feathers. If when at the top of a bush he happens 

 to see you, he dives down into the middle and disappears 

 immediately, only to reappear presently, if there is nothing to 

 alarm him, crawling up the middle of the bush and walking along 

 the branches until he gets back to his original perch, when he 

 will again commence to sing. The habit they have of crawling up 

 the bushes is so like that of a Field-Mouse, that I have more than 

 once mistaken the one for the other, the Field-Mouse also being 

 very fond of creeping up the stem of bushes. 



The female seems to be more fond of walking along the 

 ground than the male, and when disturbed off her nest slips 

 quietly down amongst the thick undergrowth that generally 

 surrounds the nest, shortly to return providing there is no noise 

 or movement to frighten her. 



I have never heard the female utter a note of any kind, 

 though I have many times watched both when mating, and when 

 the young were hatched. She is more difficult to watch than the 

 male, on account of her habit of creeping along the ground ; in 

 fact, the only times I have seen the females at all lively is for 

 the first hour after dawn during May and June. At that time 

 the male and female chase one another, and I have seen the 

 female when tired of this sitting quietly on a dead branch of a nut 

 bush, but by sunrise she was off back to her nest. The male in 

 this county sings at most hours of the day and night until the 

 female begins to sit, when he is almost silent, and remains so 

 till the young are out of the nest, then he commences to sing 

 again — that is to say, from the middle of May till about the third 

 week in June. 



This habit is curious — in no other bird have I noticed it — and 

 I should be interested to know if others have observed the same 

 thing. I said almost silent, because I once heard one singing 

 very quietly on a hot afternoon early in June. From the time 

 he arrives till the middle of May he sings continuously in the 

 morning, and certainly at times he is verj' hard to locate, owing 

 to his note sounding farther off than it really is, and vice versd, 

 the result of a habit he has of turning his head from side to side 

 when singing. He is also fond of singing at night; but I cannot 



