quarters of an inch longer, and weighs two drams and a half; while the latter weighs but two: so the songster

which does not occur in loquax, the under edge of the wing is bright yellow, while in loquax the yellow, if any, is faint. In Mr. Sweet's bird there was no yellow; in the specimen before me there is a little, the bird being probably a young one. From the figure by Werner, I conclude that young males of rufa have the under parts very yellow in the autumn, like those of Trochilus. The absence of the chiff chaff from the north of England renders it improbable that it should ever stray into the northern parts of the continent, and it is not likely to occur in Sweden. The pouillot of Temminck is the largest of the five, its wing measuring five inches and one-eighth; the second feather is shorter than the third and fourth, longer than the fifth. I have made exact representations of the first portions of the wings of the five species, by which they may be recognised.

The four allied species which frequent our island, besides the golden wren, are as follows.

wren.

1. Sylvia sylvicola, MONT.; sibilatrix, subsequently, of Bechstein; wood This bird cannot easily be confounded with the others, being readily distinguished by the shivering motion of its wings in the latter part of its short and hurried song. It is much brighter coloured than the Sylv. Trochilus. The upper parts are of a yellowish green, the tail, quills, and wing coverts being edged with that colour, and brownish in the middle. Above the eye a yellow line; a dark line passing from the bill to the eye, and behind it; the throat and cheeks yellow; the under

parts pure white. In its habit it is much less erect than Sylv. Trochilus.

is one-fifth heavier than the chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of passage that is heard, the wry

Werner's figure, in the Oiseaux d'Europe, is very faulty; it is at least three-fourths of an inch too long; the upper mandible is improperly prolonged and curved at the point; the yellow on the throat and cheeks, and above the eyes, is too pale, and continued too far down the breast; the upper surface too brown; the bill not opening far enough back. Sweet's figure in his British Warblers is much better, but the legs and under mandible are improperly coloured dark; an untrue inky hue is given to the quills; there is too much yellow underneath; and the bird is rather too large. It frequents timber trees where there is an open glade in a thicket, and low covert; in which it builds on the ground a covered nest, upon a bank, and often places it at the foot of a young tree, of which the stem divides the current in heavy rains, and sends it to the right and left of the nest. Sylv. Trochilus always lines its nest with feathers, Sylv. sylvicola never. The male continues singing near the same spot till about midsummer. The young quit their nest in Yorkshire about the 20th of June. It is a much more timid and startlish species than Sylv. Trochilus; those which are reared even to perch on the hand before they feed themselves, become fearful afterwards.

2. Sylvia Trochilus, LATH.; yellow wren, often called unmeaningly willow wren. It is a very plentiful species, found in gardens, woods, hedges, by road sides, and on furzy and rough commons, whereas the wood wren frequents timber trees only. It frequently builds in strawberry beds, amongst periwinkles, or in any other low thicket, and comes close to the windows of dwelling houses to peck the Aphides from the rose bushes. Its song is soft and plaintive, but wants variety. The hen is smaller and browner than the cock. The name yellow wren is very near as inapplicable as willow wren, for the adults have very little yellow except the stripe over the eye; and the wood wren has much more, and brighter yellow. I should propose to call it the garden wren, on account of its frequently building in small gardens, and approaching dwelling houses, and often entering conservatories in search of Aphides.

neck sometimes excepted) begins his two notes in the middle of March, and continues them through the spring

The summer before last having observed a nest of this species at the foot of the stem of an American Azalea in the garden, when they were just on the point of flying I took a male bird which was sitting half out of the

nest, and brought it into the house. Being frequently handled it became immediately so tame that, when it came to feed itself, on the door of its cage being opened it would fly to me and perch on my hand or head, or on the edge of my plate at breakfast, and suffered its head to be kissed or its back stroked without the least apprehension; and after taking its exercise and amusing itself for a time it would return into its cage to feed, and afterwards sit quietly on its perch. When this had become a confirmed habit, its cage door was left open night and day, and it was the most amiable little creature I ever saw. During my absence from home it was scared out of window and lost.

I may take this opportunity of saying that I can aver that the Sylv. flaviventris of Vieillot is the young male of this species in its autumnal dress.

and summer till the end of August, as appears by my journals. The legs of the larger of these two are fleshcoloured; of the less, black.

He admits that some persons had told him it was so, but he cannot believe that the young birds should have more brilliant plumage than adults. The fact is however so, as above stated. I have had the young male in September, with the under parts of a beautiful yellow, which disappears before the breeding season.

3. Sylvia rufa, LATH.; monotonous wren, ching ching, or lesser pettychaps. The name lesser pettychaps is absurd, because the pettychaps is a bird of different affinities and habits, belonging to a different genus, or division at least of the genus; I therefore propose to call it monotonous wren, being the only one of the four which expresses but a single note or sound. I observed and listened to one for a long time a few years ago, on the 28th of May, on some oak trees in Combe Wood, near Kingston upon Thames, at which time the hen bird, of which I could see nothing, was probably sitting in the thicket. I have frequently heard the note in Yorkshire, and last spring directed my gamekeeper to try to discover the nest of one that frequented the trees in a small coppice at Spofforth; but, under the erroneous impression that the bird was the pouillot of M. Temminck, he was directed to seek above his head and it was not discovered. The Sylv. rufa is said to breed on the ground. This bird is figured by Werner, but his specimen is of a very deep yellow on the under parts, having been probably a young male. It is remarkable that all this race of birds instead of putting on a brighter plumage in the season of love, assume a plainer garb, and lose the bright yellow which adorns the young males in autumn. This extends even to the pettychaps, Curruca hortensis.

4. Sylvia loquax, HERBERT; loquacious wren or chiff chaff. This species I proposed, in a Note on the edition of this work published in 1833, to call loquax, because it articulates its singular song chiff chaff, chivvy chaffy, as distinctly as a man can pronounce it. It had never been named, and had been entirely overlooked by ornithologists or confounded with either Sylv. Hippolais or rufa. It is much scarcer than the others, and like the golden wren it affects, I believe, the neighbourhood of fir trees; and, unless it breeds, like the other three, on the ground, I suspect that it may build in them, perhaps hanging its nest under the

The grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my fields last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing

boughs, as the golden wren does. I have never been able to meet with it in Yorkshire. The last live specimen I saw, was on a large cedar tree on the lawn in the garden of Highclere House in Hampshire at Whitsuntide in 1828 or 1829. It did not seem disposed to quit the tree, but repeated frequently its remarkable and articulate notes. I sought in vain on the ground for its nest, and it did not then occur to me to search the cedar tree, which indeed would not have been easily accomplished. Mr. Sweet in his article Sylv. Hippolais, gives an account of a Sylv. loquax which he kept in confinement, confounding it with the former of the two species; and it does not appear whether the figure he gives was taken from an English or a foreign specimen: but it is incorrect at all events, and does not truly represent any one of the allied species. I examined carefully a dead specimen of Sylv. loquax, which Mr. Sweet had kept in a cage the previous autumn and winter. It was a male bird, and had been caught in a net, and frequently articulated its chiff chaff, chivvy chaffy, while in confinement. It measured at full stretch but four inches from the tip of the bill to the extremity of the tail, having much resemblance to the female of the Sylv. Trochilus, which is always smaller and browner than the cock. Sylv. loquax has no yellow about it; there is no line over the eye; the colour is a uniform greenish brown, paler on the breast and belly. The tail-feathers and quill-feathers of the wings are dusky, edged with greenish brown; the legs are dusky, by which it may at all times be distinguished from the small hen Sylv. Trochilus. The bill, measuring from the forehead, is only five-sixteenths of an inch long, the under mandible and edges yellow, the upper part of the upper mandible brown. Its shape is slender. The second (considering the small abortive feather to be the first) quill-feather is a quarter of an inch shorter than the third, but is longer than the seventh, the third, fourth, and fifth almost of equal length. Another specimen since communicated to me by Mr. Bennett, agrees in every respect with Mr. Sweet's bird, except that it has a little tinge of yellow, being probably a young bird.

QUILL FEATHERS OF THE CHIFF CHAFF.

The outlines which I have made with minute exactness of the outer part of the wing of each of these species, as well as of the pouillot of M. Temminck (which not being Hippolais, I propose to call Sylv. Temmincki), will render it easy to distinguish them. The quill-feathers of Sylv. rufa are more pointed than those of loquax, and the whole bird longer. Sylv. Nattereri, a species observed in Spain and Italy, is closely