48 WARBLER. 



I am indebted to my late friend, the Rev. J. Light foot, for the above, 

 who first informed me, that it was found in May and June, building 

 in the brambles, and other low bushes, about Bulstrode, Bucks. 

 The nest composed of dry bents, mixed with wool, lined with those 

 of a finer textm*e, with a few white hairs of a horse or cow, though 

 not sufficient to form a covering; the eggs white, four or five in 

 number, with small dots of brown, and some irregular blotches of 

 the same towards the larger end ; also other blotches of a paler 

 brown mixed, but the small end quite plain. It is found in many 

 parts of this kingdom, but most plentiful towards the east.* 



I have set down the JMotacilla Sylvia of Linnaeus as distinct, 

 not being able to make it exactly correspond with our White Throat, 

 though many authors suppose it to be the same; nor can I clearly 

 reconcile it with the present one, as Linnaeus expressly says, that 

 two of the outer tail feathers have white in them, whereas in the 

 lesser White-Throat they are wholly brown, except the outer web of 

 the exterior, which is only paler, but not white; it approaches nearer 

 to the Babbler Warbler, though in reading the description some 

 differences will be found ; however this may be, I received, a few 

 years since, a specimen of the Lesser White-Throat from Sweden, 

 under the name of Motacilla Curruca, but whether it was the same 

 with the Kruka of that country, or that which Linnaeus meant under 

 that name, is not so easily determined .f 



Mr. Bechstein makes the length of the bill a characteristic dis- 

 tinction, and it certainly is a trifle more elongated than in the Reed, 

 or Willow Wrens, or Lesser Pettichaps ; but it appears longer than 

 it really is, from the face itself being prolonged : it both hops and 



* Col. Montagu says, it is not found in Devonshire or Cornwall, and thinks he has met 

 with it in the greatest numbers in the enclosed parts of Lincolnshire. — Orn. Diet. 



t In the Fauna suecica, Linnaeus says, " extima (rectrice) margine interiore alba." 

 In the Systema Natures, he writes "extima (rectrice) margine tenuiore alba," no doubt 

 meaqino-, that the margin of the inner web is white ; yet at the end of the description in 

 the former, he adds, " Rectrices fuscae, sed margine exteriore longitudinaliter alba," which 

 is the case in our bird; at least the outer web is very pale, approaching to white. 



