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NAVIS WARBLER (Sylvia luscinoides).-This pretty little bird, which generally measures about five inches and a half, belongs, like the two last described, to the small group which frequent moist and shaded situations among reeds and bushes near water. M. Savi, who first described it, says it arrives in Tuscany about the middle of April, and conceals itself among willows and shrubs, creeping about among the low branches, and feeding on worms and insects. Of the nest and eggs we have no description. With us the bird is a very rare visitant; the first British specimens were obtained in the fens of Cambridgeshire, in the spring of 1840. Since then a pair has been obtained at Saffron Walden, in Essex. Of the peculiar habits of this bird little or nothing is known; probably, they are the same as others of its genus. Its head, neck (above), back, wings, and tail feathers are reddish brown; chin and throat almost white; front of neck and breast pale brown; under parts of the body somewhat darker.

THE GRASSHOPPER WARBLER (Sibilatrix locustella).— Sometimes called the Grasshopper Chirper, Cricket Bird, or Sibilous Brakehopper. About five inches and twothirds long; plumage of the upper parts of a dull olive brown, with oblong dusky spots, making it look undulated or waved; the lower parts pale yellowish brown. It is a slenderly formed and elegant, although plainly coloured bird, remarkable especially for its peculiar cry, a shrill sibilous or shaking sound, like that uttered by the mole cricket. This bird arrives in the south of England about the middle of April, and spreads very gradually northward, not reaching the neighbourhood of Edinburgh until the beginning of May. Montagu says it is not a plentiful species, but, probably, appears less so by its habit of concealing itself among furzes, and thick hedges, discovering its place of concealment only by its singular, cricket-like note, which is so exactly like that of the mole cricket as scarcely to be distinguished. We have found it in Hampshire, in South Wales, and in Ireland, but nowhere so numerous as on Malmsbury Common, Wiltshire, to which place the males come about the second week in April. At this time only they expose themselves upon the top branches of the furze, and are continually making their singular chirping notes, their only song. As soon as the females arrive, which

THE GOLD-CROWNED KINGLET.

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The

is about ten days after, the males are almost silent till the dusk of the evening, when they are incessantly crying, possibly to decoy the larger species of grasshoppers, which begin their chirpings with the setting sun. Selby says that the nest of this bird is composed of moss, and the dried stems of the ladies bed-straw, and bears a great resemblance to that of the Petty chaps, or the Whitethroat, though it is thicker and more compact in texture. eggs are four or five in number, of a pinkish grey, with numerous specks of a deeper tint. The young, when disturbed, immediately quit the nest, although but half fledged, trusting, doubtless, to their instinctive power of concealment. Montagu describes the eggs as of a spotless blueish white, but he probably mistook them for those of some other bird, for Yarrell says that they are of a pale reddish white, freckled over with darker red; he has seen five or six sets, and they did not differ in colour. sometimes lays as many as seven eggs.

The bird

White gives us a pretty picture of the habits of this little bird, saying—

Nothing can be more amusing than its whisper, which seems to be close by, though at a hundred yards distance, and when close to your ear is scarce any louder than when a great way off. Had I not been a little acquainted with insects, and known that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should have hardly believed but that it had been a locusta whispering in the bushes. The country people laugh when you tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a most willful creature, skulking in the thickest part of a bush, and will sing at a yard distant, provided it be concealed. I was obliged to get a person to go on the other side where it haunted; but then it would run, creeping like a mouse before us, for a hundred yards together, through the bottom of the thorns; yet it would not come into fair sight; but on a morning early, and when undisturbed, it sings on the top of a twig, gaping and shivering with its wings.

THE GOLD-CROWNED KINGLET (Regulus auricapillus), commonly called the Golden-crested Wren, sometimes the Tidley Goldfinch, or Marygold Finch. This is the smallest of British birds, its weight being less than a dram and a half; but it is one of the most active, and endures the winter better than very many of the larger kinds. It

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ACTIVITY OF THE REGULUS.

is generally a forest bird, nestling in trees, residing on them, and not paying an annual visit to the neighbourhood of houses, like the common Wren; its bill is very slender, straight, and awl-shaped, and it feeds on insects, for which

it is constantly hunting throughout the whole year. It is a very beautiful bird, the plumage of the upper parts of the body being of a light yellowish brown; of the lower parts brownish grey; the silky feathers on the top of the head are of a bright orange colour, with a band on each side of black; the inner webs of these feathers are of a lemon tint. It is this crest, bearing a fanciful resemblance to a golden crown, which has given occasion for the generic term Regulus, applied to the diminutive and lively birds which bear it, and of which there are three British species. The one here described is the commonest of the Reguli, or Kinglets; it is found in all wooded parts of the country, rather plentifully in most places, and very much so in the larger pine forests, but it is so small, generally so far from the ground, and always so quick in its motions, that we can seldom obtain a perfect view of the little songster, and never a very lengthened one. The command which these tiny creatures have of themselves is really astonishing; they whisk about among the trees more like

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meteors than solid matter, now on this side, now on that, now above the twig, now hanging inverted under it, the body never at rest, and the head having generally an additional motion. The male sings early, though the time of year varies with the forwardness of the season; in warm situations it is in February, and the young are sometimes fledged in April. The nest of this bird is not easily discovered, being placed among the thick branches of a pine or some other lofty tree, or hidden between the ivy and the boll. It is in the shape of a cup, very deep, and neatly constructed; green moss forms the external part, sometimes interwoven with wool; the interior is very small feathers, in such considerable quantity that the eggs, ten or eleven in number, and no bigger than a pea, can scarcely be discerned.

We copy the following interesting account of this bird's peculiarities from Broderip's 'Zoological Recreations':

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The notes of the Gold-crested Wren, the smallest of British birds, can hardly be called a song, but they salute the ear in the beginning of February; and the beautiful little bird, with its elegant nest and pale-brown eggs, weighing nine or ten grains each- the bird weighs no more than eighty-must not pass unnoticed. A pair, which took possession of a fir-tree in Colonel Montagu's garden, ceased their song as soon as the young were hatched; and, when they were about six days' old, he took the nest and placed it outside his study window. After the old birds had become familiar with that situation, the basket was brought within the window, and afterwards was conveyed to the opposite side of the room. The male had regularly assisted in feeding the young ones as long as they remained outside the window; and, though he attended the female afterwards to that barrier, he never once entered the room, nor brought any food while the young were in it. But the mother's affections were not to be so checked. She would enter, and feed her infant brood at the table where Colonel Montagu was sitting, and even while he held the nest in his hand. One day he moved his head as she was sitting on the edge of the nest which he held. She instantly retreated so precipitately, that she mistook the closed for the open part of the window, dashed herself against the glass, and lay apparently breathless on the floor for some time.

Neither the fright nor the hurt could, however, overpower her maternal yearnings. Colonel Montagu had the pleasure of seeing her recover, and soon return; and she afterwards frequently fed her nestlings while he held the nest in his hand. The little mother's visits were generally repeated in the space of a minute and a half, or two