CHIFF-CHAFF 
39 
form another well-defined family group among 
British copse-birds, like the Blackcap and White- 
throat quartette, and the Water Warblers to which 
we shall come presently. Our British species are 
only a few members of a tribe very numerous on 
the Continent, and well described in their 
characteristic habits by the generic name Phyllo- 
scopus or " Leaf-looker,'' which accurately hits 
off the way in which this family of birds spends 
most of its time creeping and fluttering about 
among the foliage of trees and bushes in search of 
its insect food. The Chiff-chaff returns to the 
copses almost as early as the Wheatear to the 
breezy downs, and it may almost always be first 
seen, or far more frequently heard, before the end 
of March. The double note which gives the 
Chiff-chaff its name is henceforward one of the 
most constant voices of the woods and thickets 
till the great bird-silence comes in July, and from 
early in August till departure early in October 
it is often picked up again once more in a fainter 
echo of the indefatigable spring song. I have 
heard the Chiff-chaffs singing in September in 
the Bernese Oberland, at the topmost limit of the 
sycamores and other deciduous trees, and just below 
the unmixed pine-belts, with a vigour and frequency, 
especially at early dawn, which I think is unknown 
in England at this season, and almost equalled 
