WILLOW WARBLER. 119 
This bird frequents the hedges of meadows, especially those, 
if there be any such now left, that have not been laic low 
by the pruner’s hook, and that both on hill and plain alike, 
as also the borders of streams, the nurseries of the alder, the 
hazel, the birch, and the withy, orchards, woods, brakes, 
plantations, thickets, furze covers, gardens, brambles, bushes, 
and trees, seeming to have a preference for osiers ana willows, 
and hence its name. It is pleasant indeed to watch it in 
the autumn, when the greater numbers are to be seen, gliding 
and shifting about among the branches of fruit trees and 
bushes, now hopping here, now frisking there, as if seeming 
to think that its diminutive size or conscious innocence was 
a guarantee for its safe security from molestation or injury. 
The female shews great attachment to her young, and though 
taken off the nest, has been known to return to it on being 
set at liberty. 
One of our earliest sylvan visitants, its arrival in this 
country is generally the second week in April, but sometimes 
so soon as the end of March, and its departure the second 
week in September, or the beginning of October: Mr. Thompson, 
of Belfast, has heard it sing on the 24th. of the former month, 
as also so late as the 10th. of the latter. In Scotland it 
does not arrive till the third or last week in September. 
They would seem to come over in small flocks: the males 
before the females. 
This species also is easily tamed and reconciled to captivity. 
Mr. Hewitson mentions one which he captured at night, and 
which in the morning shewed no wish to fly away, but 
hopped about on the table, picking up the flies which he 
placed for its breakfast. Another, taken from the nest and 
placed in a cage, immediately began to eat the insects offered 
to her. The Willow Wren is very lively, brisk, and vigorous 
in all its habits and actions, moving and flitting from branch 
to branch in search of its food; it is of a pugnacious 
character, and even the young, when foraging for themselves 
in the autumn, will drive away other birds that intrude upon 
their neighbourhood. A ‘curious instance 1s recorded in the 
‘Field Naturalist’ by a lady, of a nest which she accidentally 
disturbed and took up, being still proceeded with, and two 
eges laid, and though it was again disturbed and almost 
ruined, and the eggs displaced by a flock of Ducks, on her 
placing them in it again and restoring it to something like 
its proper form, another egg was laid the same day, and four 
