“The Nightingale, if he should sing by day
When every goose is cackling would be thought
No better a musician than the Wren.”
The fact that the bird sings by day as well as by night was known, however, to the ancients, because Virgil mentions it. Readers of this little volume will also gather that other feathered musicians, such as the Sedge and Grasshopper Warblers, Woodlark, and Cuckoo, also sing by night.
Individual members of this species differ in the quality of their notes, as was observed as far back as Pliny’s time.
The alarm note sounds like wate, wate, cur, cur, or witt, krr.
THE LESSER WHITETHROAT.
The Lesser Whitethroat arrives in April and leaves again in September. It is far less numerous than its larger relative, and is not so widely distributed over the British Islands. This bird is most plentiful in the South and East of England, becoming scarcer towards the North and West, rare in Scotland, and absent altogether from Ireland as a breeding species.