WILLOIV-WARBLER^WOOD-WARBLER. 
27 
This is the " middle yellow wren," the " second willow 
or laughing wren," and the " middle willow wren " of Gilbert 
White ; the bird with " a joyous, easy laughing note " — 
" the songster." ^ 
25. PhylLoscoptis sibilatrix. Wood- Warbler. 
Wood-Wren. 
A summer visitor. 
It arrives about the middle of April, later than either 
the chiffchaff or willow-wren, and departs in September. 
It is not plentiful in any part of the county, but is most 
numerous in the New Forest, where in many of the planta- 
tions, and especially the oak plantations, it outnumbers 
both the willow- wren and the chiffchaff. In other parts 
it is most common in those districts where beech trees 
abound. 
In the Isle of Wight, however. More speaks of it as 
frequenting chiefly fir-plantations. 
This is the "large shivering willow-wren " of Gilbert 
White, which " haunts only the top of trees in high beechen 
woods, and makes a sibilous grasshopper- like noise now 
and then, at short intervals, shivering a little with its wings 
when it sings." 2 
The three willow- wrens, — the chiffchaff, the true 
willow-wren, and the wood-wren, — must always have a 
peculiar interest for Hampshire naturalists, because Gilbert 
White was the first Englishman to distinguish them apart, 
and to point out how easily they may be recognised by 
' Letter xvi. to Pennant. Selborne. April i8th, 1768. 
^ Letter xix. to Pennant. Selborne. August 17th, 1768. 
