10 
SYLVIA sylvicoia 
The Wood-Wren. 
S. sylvicoia. Length five inches and a half ; bill horn -colour ; upper 
mandible bent at the tip, and rather longer than the under ; irides 
hazel ; nostrils beset with bristles ; top of the head, neck, back, 
and tail-coverts olive-green ; throat and cheeks yellow, paler on 
the breast; belly and vent of a most beautiful silvery white; 
through the eye passes a yellow line : wings and coverts brown, 
edged with green ; tail consisting of twelve feathers, rather fork- 
ed, and of a brown colour, edged with green on the exterior webs, 
and with white on the interior, the first feather wanting the green 
edge; under part of the shoulder bright yellow ; legs rather more 
than an inch long, of a horn-colour ; claws paler. T. Lamb in Lin - 
nean Transactions , v. 2. p. 245. t. 24. 
Sylvia sylvicoia. Montagu Linn, trans. v . 4. p. 35. Turt. brit.faun . 
v. 1. p. 45. 
Sylvia sibilatrix. Beckstein . Temminck Manual D’ Ornithologie. v. 1. 
An elegant and interesting little bird, which arrives 
in this country the beginning of April, and leaves it in 
August or the beginning of September. I have never 
observed it in any other situation than amongst tall 
trees, in woods or plantations, where it is readily de- 
tected on its arrival, by its shrill shaking sort of note, 
which may be heard at a great distance, and cannot be 
confounded with the song of any other bird ; when it 
first arrives, it continues to sing nearly all day long, 
and its song is continued more or less through most 
part of the Summer, except the time that it is engaged in 
feeding its young ; it is then discovered by a dull mourn- 
ful sort of call, quite different from that of any other bird ; 
it may be easily watched to its nest, which is built on 
the ground in a thicket of small bushes, and consists of 
moss and dry leaves, with a covering at the top of the 
same materials, so that it is scarcely possible to discover 
it, without watching the old birds to it, either when they 
are building, or carrying food to their young. I believe 
they are to be found in most woods and large planta- 
tions in Summer. I have frequently heard them in 
Kensington Gardens amongst the tall trees ; and they 
are not uncommon in Coombe-wood in Surrey, where 
I procured a nest with young ones last Summer ; and 
I find they may be reared by hand from the nest very 
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