BRITISH WARBLERS 
in the nature of a game. The fighting generally takes place 
within, comparatively speaking, a very small area. The owner 
of the territory is the aggressor, and he pursues the intruder, 
flying round and round in and out of the bushes, never leaving 
him alone for long, but incessantly attacking, and thus com- 
pelling him to move from place to place. Both males sing or 
warble continuously even as they fly, and when they meet 
there is considerable pecking and fluttering. As might be 
expected the attitudes are expressive of great excitement. 
When settled near one another, or in the same bush, a quiver- 
ing of the wings is at times noticeable; but during the height 
of the excitement the feathers on their backs are raised, those 
on their heads erected, and their tails spread and drooped, or 
more frequently waved up and down. When less in earnest 
the attitudes are very similar, although the one male can by 
no means be said to intrude upon, but only to follow, the other, 
and at such a time an incessant excited warbling is uttered 
by both of them in addition to the usual fluffing of the 
feathers, spreading and waving of the tail. Therefore, it will 
be seen that, so far as the attitudes are concerned, there is 
little, if any, difference between the quarrel on the one hand 
and the companionship on the other, but that there zs a 
genuine difference no one after closely observing them would, 
I think, deny. 
The males have periods of frenzied excitement even before 
the arrival of the females, and J have seen a male commence 
to construct a nest, adding to it slowly day by day, which, 
upon the arrival of a female, was completed, and ultimately 
used for rearing the offspring. 
The females begin to arrive about twelve days after the 
first male, and there is as much variation in their plumage 
as in that of the males. In some cases it is fully developed 
and brightly coloured, in others the reverse; but I believe 
that the brightly coloured females are of less frequent occur- 
rence than the brightly coloured males. 
As a rule the male pairs with the first female that enters 
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