THE COMMON CHIFF-CHAFF.
Sylva loquax, Herbert; S. Hippolais, Montagu; but not the S. Hippolais of the Continental authors, which is S. polyglotta.
COLONEL MONTAGU AND MR. SWEET’T ACCOUNT OF THE CHIFF-CHAFF.
This bird weighs about two or nearly three drachms; the length varies from four inches and a half to five inches.
This species is nearly the same size as the hay-bird. In its plumage it so much resembles that bird, that we shall only make mention here of some essential marks of distinction, and refer our readers to the hay-bird.
Its general colour is not so much tinged with yellow, and the legs are dusky, which in the other are brown.
The plumage of the sexes are alike.
These two birds have been, and are, frequently confounded, and with them the wood wren of this work; but this last is at once distinguished by the under tail-coverts being a pure white, and the plumage of a more lively green on the upper parts than either of the others. The nest, eggs, and notes, will be found also different by consulting and comparing the history of each. This is the first of all the migrative warblers (Sylviadæ) in its annual visit, and is, perhaps, the only one that has occasionally been observed with us during the winter, and that only in the milder parts of England. It is generally heard on or before the first of April repeating its song, if that may be so called which consists only of four notes, which seem to express the words chip, chop, cherry, churry, four or five times successively. It is a busy, restless bird, always active among the trees and bushes in search of insects. From its early cry in our neighbourhood, we long suspected it would be found that this hardy little bird did not wholly quit us, and in this opinion we were confirmed by seeing one in the garden about Christmas, 1806. In the following January, we observed two of these little creatures busied in catching the small insects which a bright day had roused in great abundance about some fir trees, by springing upon them from the ends of the branches, one of which we succeeded in shooting. Another, which we killed in 1808, on the same spot, while feeding upon a small species of culex, weighed one drachm thirty-three grains; this will easily account for the very early cry of this bird in the spring, as it is highly probable that they remain with us the whole year, but are wholly silent in the winter. The earliest we ever heard was on the 14th of March, 1804, when vegetation was unusually early.