not met with any notice of it as a visiter to Orkney or Shetland.
In this country it is resident throughout the year, frequenting
hedge-rows, gardens, and pleasure-grounds, from
spring to autumn, where it feeds indiscriminately on insects
in their various stages, worms, and seeds, but not on fruit;
drawing nearer to the habitations of men as winter approaches,
to gain such scanty subsistence as chance or kindness
may afford; and Gilbert White of Selborne remarks,
that it is a frequenter of gutters and drains in hard weather,
where crumbs and other sweepings may be picked up. It is
more frequently seen on the ground than elsewhere, is unobtrusive
and harmless, and deserves protection and support.
Early in February the male may be heard singing his
short and plaintive song ; but the voice of this little favourite,
though sweet in tone, is deficient in variety as well
as in power : yet his song may still be heard throughout the
greater part of the year, if we except a short period in August
when undergoing his annual moult. Mr. Knapp has
observed that Hedge Warblers are almost always seen in
pairs, feeding and moving in company with each other, and
may truly, in a double sense, be considered domestic birds.
Their nest, built of green moss, roots and wool, and lined
with hair, is usually placed rather low down in a thick bush
or hedge-row, and is generally finished early in March. As
observed in the Journal of a Naturalist, “ it is nearly the
first bird that forms a nest; and this being placed in an almost
leafless hedge, with little art displayed in its concealment,
generally becomes the booty of every prying boy; and
the blue eggs of the Hedge Warbler are always found in
such numbers on his string, that it is surprising how any of
the race are remaining, especially when we consider the many
casualties to which the old birds are exposed from their tameness,
and the young that are hatched from their situation.’1
In a nest thus easily found the Cuckoo is apt to deposit
her egg, and Mr. Slaney says more Cuckoos are fostered by
the Hedge Warbler than by any other bird.
The eggs of the Hedge Warbler are four or five in number,
sometimes, though rarely, six, of a delicate and spotless
bluish green colour; nine lines and a half in length, by six
lines and a half in breadth. According to Mr. Jenyns, the
first brood of young birds is hatched in April, and a second
brood is reared in the season.
The Hedge Warbler goes as far north in summer as Sweden
; but, according to M. Nilsson, most of them leave that
country before winter. It inhabits all the temperate parts of
Europe, but goes southward in autumn ; it is even said to
leave Genoa in October, but to be found in every hedge
about Rome and the southern parts of Italy in winter. Mr.
Strickland obtained this bird at Smyrna in December ; but it
was considered rare in that locality.
The beak is dark brown, but lighter in colour at the base;
irides hazel; head, nape, and sides of the neck, bluish grey,
streaked with brown, except behind and below the ear-
coverts, where the grey colour is unmixed with brown ; back
and wings reddish brown, streaked with dark brown ; upper
tail-coverts plain hair-brown; wing-primaries and tail-feathers
dusky brown ; tertials margined with reddish brown ;
chin, throat, and chest, grey; breast and belly buffy white;
sides and flanks pale brown, streaked with dark brown ;
under surface of wings and tail-feathers greyish brown; the tail
slightly forked : legs and toes orange brown; claws black ;
the hind claw as large again as either of the other three.
The whole length of the bird rather more than five inches
and a half. From the carpal joint to the end of the longest
feather in the wing, two inches and three-quarters : the first
wing-feather very small; the second a little longer than the
seventh, but shorter than the sixth; the third, fourth, and