150 
WILLOW WARBLER. 
The Willow Warbler, Sylvia Trochi- 
lus, Selby. — Willow Warbler or Willow Wren 
of British authors . — This pretty and active little 
bird is the most abundant of our summer warb- 
lers, enlivening every plantation or coppice, or 
clump of brushwood, with its few lively notes. 
It is one of our earliest sylvan visitants, and in 
some of those warm April mornings, scented by 
the opening birch, and bright with the first 
fresh green of the larch, the associations are 
completed when the cheerful song of this little 
bird, for the first time in the season, meets the 
ear. It is every where common, and frequents the 
older woods as well as those of younger and 
more humble growth. It stretches to the 
extremity of the mainland of Scotland ; and in 
some of the birchen woods which gird that 
district, is the only warbler whose voice will 
recall the existence of some climes less wild and 
picturesque. In Ireland it seems very nearly as 
equally distributed.* Like the last, it is ever in 
motion, constantly repeating its lively but 
limited song. The situation selected for the 
nest is also similar, and is often only discovered 
by the bird flying off from a too near approach, 
which it does in a low flutter, almost like what is 
performed by some of the rasorial or grallatorial 
birds ; it does not fly far, but remains within a 
few yards, uttering a plaintive call of distress. 
The nest also is constructed of the same shape 
* Mr Thompson. 
