a joyous, easy laughing note; the other a harsh loud chirp. The former is every way larger, and three

Sylv. Trochilus the second is equal to the sixth, and shorter than the three intermediate. In the foreign specimen of Sylv. rufa, a male bird, and in that killed in England, the second is equal to the eighth, and shorter than all the intermediate. In Sylv. loquax, the chiff chaff, now before me, the second is longer than the seventh, and shorter than the four intermediate; and this exactly agrees with Mr. Sweet's bird, from which I made the description in the former edition, after its death. It was a male bird; whence it appears that the difference is not that of sex, but of species. In my former description, it should be remarked, I did not count the obsolete quill, and my first was properly the second.

The chiff chaff is not plentiful in this country, unless perhaps in some particular situations, which I have not visited. I never have seen one in Yorkshire, and, though particularly watchful for it in the south of England, it is six or seven years since I have seen one alive.

The bird which I supposed (as it now appears, erroneously, never having been willing to kill these harmless creatures) to be the pouillot or Hippolais of M. Temminck, I have seen sitting on the summit of an oak tree at the time of its leafing, and reiterating its monotonous note ching ching; and it has been pointed out to me at such moments by Mr. Sweet, as being one of the allied wrens. In the Faune Françoise of Vieillot, I find a Sylv. Collybita; to which he quotes as synonymous, Motacilla rufa, LINN., and rufous warbler, LATH., having improperly substituted a new name for one which must not be changed, although rufous is but ill warranted by a little reddish tint on the flanks. He subjoins as vulgar names, compteur d'argent and chofti; and states that it often sits on the summits of trees, where the male utters its note, which has obtained it in Normandy the name of money-counter. He continues to say that the note of this bird has appeared to himself to express tip tap repeated several times. It is, I think, quite clear, that the bird which is called, on account of its note uttered on the top of a high tree, money-counter or money-changer, is that which I have heard in such a situation, uttering its unvaried ching or chink chink. The chiff chaff does not sit on the summit of a tree, but is in perpetual motion, distinctly articulating chiff chaff, chivvy chaffy; and it is equally clear that such notes could never have suggested the idea of chinking money, but they are the sounds which Mr. Vieillot has not very accurately represented by tip tap. It must be recollected, that to convey to a Frenchman the sound we give to chiff or chaff, the letter t must be prefixed. It thus appears that two different birds have been confounded under the name Sylv. Collybita, newly introduced by Vieillot, and that of Mot. rufa of Linnæus, on the continent, as they have been here: that Sylvia rufa is the ching ching, and that the chiff chaff had never had any scientific name appropriated to it, till I designated it as Sylv. loquax, except the improper application of the names Hippolais and rufa to it. Sylv. rufa is rather larger than Sylv. loquax, its wing measuring four inches and seven-eighths, while that of loquax is only four inches and a half long: besides the rufous tinge on its flanks,

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.

1. Sylvia sylvicola, MONT.; sibilatrix, subsequently, of Bechstein; wood wren. 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. sylricola 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.

QUILL-FEATHERS OF THE WILLOW WREN.

I may take this opportunity of saying that I can aver that the Sylv. flariventris 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 petty chaps 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