402 
Y. 
Stoke by Nayland Suffolk June 23 d 
1828. 
Sir, 
Having been highly gratified in looking over your 
splendid Illustrations of British Ornithology & thinking that any- 
thing you had not perhaps observed in the habits of some of our 
Birds, might not be uninteresting to you, I have ventured to 
forward you a few observations I have made on some of the Birds 
inhabiting this part of the Country. In the Genus Sylvia, the 
Lesser Whitethroat, Sylvia sylviella, does not appear to have fallen 
under your immediate observation : * it is a common species in this 
neighbourhood arriving in the spring about the same time as Sylvia 
cinerea : it is an active, restless little Bird fond of thick bramble 
hedges, among the branches of which it insinuates itself with great 
ease & quickness ; it builds a smaller & more compact nest than 
S. cinerea : its note of alarm is similar to Sylvia Hortensis, & it is 
very vociferous on your approach to its nest : it remains with us 
until the middle, & sometimes the end, of Sep* 1 , frequenting gardens, 
being very fond of fruit : its plumage in autumn is beautiful, the 
breast being of a silvery whiteness. I have had several nests of 
that most beautiful & elegant of our indigenous Birds, the 
Bearded Titmouse. The margins of the extensive pieces of water 
called Broads in the south eastern part of Norfolk which are 
# skirted with large tracts of reeds are the favorite abode of this 
species : its nest is composed, on the outside, with the decayed 
leaves of the sedge & reed, intermixed with a few pieces of grass, 
& invariably lined with the top of the reeds in the same manner 
as the Beed Wren : it is not so compact a nest as the Reed Wren’s : 
* When Selby, in 1825, published “Part First” of the text to his 
Illustrations of British Ornithology, containing an account of the * Land 
Birds,’ he said (p. 179) that, not having been able to meet with a recent specimen 
of the Lesser Whitethroat, he contented himself with alluding only to the 
species. In his second edition, published in 1833, he included it, specially 
mentioning (p. 21 6) a nest, together with the eggs and parent birds, “ received 
from Suffolk”— one, no doubt, of those sent him by Hoy, as will be seen by the 
next letter. Nearly all the remarks in the present letter have reference to 
statements made by Selby in his first edition, many of which were modified 
according to this information in the second edition. 
