LESSER WHITETHROAT 
the Midland counties. The last week in April is the usual 
time, my earliest record being April 18th, but in a cold and 
unfavourable season their advent may be delayed as late as 
the second week in May. They arrive during the night or 
in the early hours of the morning, and when the latter is 
the case, solitary individuals can sometimes be seen about 
6 o’clock travelling from tree to tree, searching for food as 
they wend their way along, always moving in one direction. 
Although they are so closely related to the Whitethroat, no 
one could help noticing a very remarkable difference between 
the two species. True it is that they inhabit hedgerows 
and feed upon similar food, but the small peculiarities, the 
sum total of which form a character, are very distinct in 
the two birds. Both are active, but the superabundance 
of vigour, so prominent at periods of excitement in the life 
of the Whitethroat, is not so pronounced in this species. 
The male, when in perfect plumage, is very neat in 
appearance, the contrast between the grey and the white 
being especially striking; but such males are by no means 
common in the spring, the majority being duller in appearance. 
Hedgerows, gardens, the outskirts of small plantations and 
orchards are their favourite resorts, and although they visit 
this country in varying numbers from year to year, yet I 
have never found them go plentiful as other members of the 
genus. When the first males arrive they are very restless, 
travelling along the tops of such trees as elms, or amongst 
the fruit trees in orchards, to which they are very partial, 
wandering from tree to tree in search of the Chironomdae, 
halting only occasionally to sing. In this way they travel 
rapidly through the orchards and hedgerows, apparently in 
one direction, but in reality they do not leave a certain 
district, although the extent of land over which they wander 
is large. Now in this peculiarity—namely, their liking for 
tall trees and the large area over which they wander when 
they first arrive—they differ from the Whitethroat, and this 
characteristic is more interesting because, upon the arrival 
5 
