BRITISH BIRDS OF THE ROBIN KIND. 



441 



but, in doing so, I think I have selected a term which cannot give rise 

 to any confusion, because the other known species of the genus do not 

 possess the peculiarity which this altered name implies. The yellow or 

 willow- wren of British authors (Pouillet of "the French) is particularly 

 distinguished from its congeners by possessing a delightful and truly 

 melodious song, and I have therefore termed the species Sylvia melodia, 

 in preference to S. trochilus, a name which it has hitherto borne, but 

 which, as it is without any definite meaning, might with equal pro- 

 priety be affixed to any other member of the genus, which melodia 

 could not. 



The members of the genus Sylvia are beautiful, delicate little birds, 

 so similar to each other in appearance that few common observers 

 distinguish them. They have no varied song like the Ficedida, but 

 uniformly, with very little variation, reiterate the same run of notes, 

 which, in the three common British species, is remarkably dissimilar, 

 considering the close resemblance of the birds. They chiefly frequent 

 woods and the neighbourhood of large trees, but one species (the willow 

 wren, or garden petty chaps, S. melodia) is found abundantly in almost 

 every other situation, by the road-side, in gardens, and amongst the 

 brambles and furze on commons. Their bills are small and weak, and 

 of the true warbler form ; their plumage chaste and inobtrusive, always 

 more or less tinged with green and yellow, with a light streak over the 

 eye, in some species broad and well defined. The nest is built upon 

 the ground, amongst the herbage, or occasionally in a low bush ; some- 

 times, in the wood- wren, against the trunk of a tree ; it is of an oval 

 form, with a rather wide opening near the top, composed of dead leaves, 

 dry grass, and moss, and lined with a profusion of feathers ; but in 

 that of the wood-wren invariably with fine dry grass and horse hair- 

 All the species have a very plaintive cry when any one is near their 

 nest : that of the wood wren is not peculiarly dolorous, it may be ex- 

 pressed by tee-yip. The willow- wren's is hid, or rather heu-eej and 

 that of the chiff-chaff is extremely similar, though not so much so but 

 that it may be distinguished, being uttered in rather a different key, 

 and it does not articulate the two syllables so distinctly as the willow- 

 wren. The food of the Sylvia? consists chiefly of aphides, small 

 caterpillars, and the smaller winged insects, which latter are frequently 

 taken on the wing, in the manner of a fly-catcher (Muscicapa). 



As the birds of this genus have been, and still are, very much con- 

 fused. I shall conclude this long (and, I fear, tedious) paper, by en- 

 deavouring to elucidate the several species as far as I am able. Three 

 species are very common in the south of England ; these are 



