VVHINCH AT. 



535 



Pult. Cat. Dorset, p. 9 — Bewick's Br. Birds, 1. p. 231. male Flem, Br. A aim. 



p. 67.— Sweet's Br. Warbler, p. 1 Selby, pi. 48. fig. 2. p. 201.* 



This species weighs about four drams and a half ; length full five 

 inches. The bill is black, the base beset with bristles ; irides dark 

 hazel ; crown of the head, cheeks, hind-neck, back, and upper tail co- 

 verts, black, each feather margined with rufous-brown, which gives the 

 bird a pretty spotted appearance ; from the upper mandible a broad 

 white streak passes over the eye, on each side, to the back of the head, 

 where it almost meets ; from the chin another white streak passes down 

 each side of the neck ; throat and breast light ferruginous ; sides the 

 same, but less bright ; belly and under tail coverts white, tinged with 

 the same ; wing coverts and quills dusky black, partly edged with 

 rufous-brown ; on the wing, near the shoulder, is a large patch of 

 white, and a smaller one of the same colour on the greater coverts of 

 the primores ; tail short, the feathers white more than half way from 

 the base ; the rest dusky black, slightly tipped and margined with pale 

 rufous-brown ; legs black. 



This is a migrative species, appearing with us about the middle of 

 April, inhabiting the same places as the chick-stone, and corresponding 

 with that bird in all its habits, except that this does not remain with us 

 during the winter. It is most frequently found about furzy places, where 

 it breeds. It places its nest on the ground, amongst the grass, at the 

 bottom of a bush, very artfully concealed, generally forming a path 

 through the grass to it. This nest is composed of dried grass and stalks, 

 with very little moss externally, and lined with fine dried grass. The 

 eggs are generally six in number, entirely blue, without a spot ; in 

 which they differ from those of the chick-stone, which have a faint 

 appearance of rufous, disposed in small close-set spots at the larger end. 



This elegant little bird sings very prettily, and that not unfrequently 

 suspended on the wing over the furze. It always sits on the top branches 

 of a bush, watching for flies, its principal food ; and, like the fly-catchers, 

 will dart into the air, and return to the same spray repeatedly. It 

 seems also a more local species than the chick-stone : is rarely found 

 in the further part of Devonshire and in Cornwall, but is plentiful in 

 Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire, and the more eastern 

 parts. Selby traced it also a considerable way into Scotland. 



It is remarkable that many of the summer migrative species of 

 warblers are not to be found in the west of England, and yet the whole 

 of them are met with in Wiltshire, and from thence to the eastern 

 coast, especially about London and the adjoining counties : from this it 

 should appear that they come to that coast first from the continent ; 



