52 
BIRDS OF LEICESTERSHIRE AND RUTLAND. 
I have reason to believe that it nested, in 1885, at “ Leicester Frith,” 
the seat of INIr. T. Swift Taylor. Mr. Gr. H. Storer writes : — “ Some friends of 
mine found a nest in a spinney near the Hinckley Eoad, in 1887. It was built 
in a bush — I believe a briar — almost upon the ground, and was very untidily 
constructed of bents and brown oak-leaves. It contained five eggs.” Kev. H. Parry 
kindly presented to the jMuseum a nest and two eggs found at Tugby, on 
2nd June, 1888. 
In Rutland. — A summer migrant, sparingly distributed, and breeding. — 
Mr. Horn writes me that he first heard its song, in 1886, on 24th April, and 
that he heard it singing in Stockerstone Wood, Stoke Wood, Stoke End Wood, 
Wardley Wood (three), and in a thick belt of hedge on the Leicester Road, 
near Uppingham. 
S U B-FAMIL Y S YL VIINyE. 
WHITETHROAT. Sylvia cinerea (Bechstein). 
“Hay-iug,” “Nettle-creeper” (as also the following species), 
“Peggy,” “Great Peggy.” 
A summer migrant, commonly distributed, and breeding. 
Harley observed that the males arrive first, and are then very shy and wary, 
and that “ the young, before they are fully fledged, not unfrequently leave the 
nest, and creep about the bushes and thickets in which they have been fostered, 
but especially so on being disturbed.” He also states that this species is double- 
brooded, which I have no doubt is the case, as the Museum possesses a nest and 
young taken by me so late as August, 1883, at Aylestone. 
I find that the song of this bird has often been mistaken for that of the 
Sedge- Warbler, frequently reported to me as “occurring in great numbers this 
year,” and puzzling me to account for so many of the latter species being heard 
along dusty country roads and lanes, far away from their usual haunts. In 1887, 
however, I was enabled to bring one of my most positive informants and the 
so-called Sedge-Warbler “ face to face,” and, the songster turning out to be the 
Whitethroat, as I predicted, upset all the theories based upon the “ abundance of 
the Sedge-Warbler this year.” 
In Rutland. — A summer migrant, commonly distributed, and breeding. — In 
1886, Mr. Horn noted its appearance on 25th April. 
LESSER WHITETHROAT. Sylvia curruca (Linnseus). 
“Little Peggy,” “White-breasted Fauvette” (obsolete). 
A summer migrant, sparingly distributed, and breeding. — Harley considered 
it very local. Mr. Macaulay states (‘Mid. Nat.’, 1881, p. 255) that this species 
arrives earlier than the preceding, but the table of arrivals of migrants does not, 
on the whole, bear out his case. 
