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avifauna, and though I killed some dozens of snowy-white-bellied Willow Wrens, they were all the common Sylvia trochilus. That the bird is Irish I am sure, for I have heard it. an Irish ornithologist see this, will he try for it, if he should live in a wooded district, such as the counties Wicklow and Wexford? sure it is neglected for want of a certain distinction." Since this note was published, the Wood Wren has actually been obtained in Ireland, a specimen having been shot in the county of Fermanagh by Sir Victor Brooke, and preserved by him in June, 1870. Another was obtained the same year at Glen Druid in the county of Dublin, as reported by Mr. BlakeKnox. Both Sir William Jardine and Macgillivray have referred to the Wood Warbler being found northward to the middle districts of Scotland, a circumstance which appears to have been overlooked by Mr. Yarrell, since he says (vol. i. p. 349, 3rd edit.), “I am not aware of any record of its appearance in Scotland." This statement, however, has been rectified in the

fourth edition of this standard work by Professor Newton, who remarks: "In Scotland it is known to breed regularly in the counties of Dumfries, Wigton, Lanark and Berwick, the Lothians and Perthshire, and occasionally in those of Roxburgh, Selkirk, Renfrew and Stirling." Mr. A. G. More, in an article "On the Distribution of Birds in Great Britain during the Nesting Season," published in the "Ibis" for 1865, observes (p. 26), that the Wood Warbler "in Scotland ranges further north than the Chiff-chaff, having been observed by the Duke of Argyle in Argyleshire and at Balmoral."

According to Mr. Robert Gray, of Glasgow, it has been observed in Inverness and Aberdeenshire, and Mr. Edwards has found it in Banffshire.

Beyond the British Islands the Wood Warbler is found throughout Europe, though rare in the north, and it extends eastward to Siberia and southward to Algeria, Egypt and Abyssinia. It arrives in this country generally about the middle of April, and leaves again in September.

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(Phylloscopus trochilus.)

HE Willow Warbler is much

TH

more

generally distributed than the last-named. bird; but it is possible that it is considered commoner from the difference in the haunts of the two species-the Wood Warbler, as already remarked, keeping further away from habitations. As a rule, the Willow Wren arrives in this country about the end of the first week in April-that is to say, before the Wood Warbler,

but not so early as the Chiff-chaff, which is the first of the genus to appear.

Yarrell speaks of these birds as having acquired with us the general name of Willow Warblers, or Willow Wrens, from their

pre

vailing green colour;" but Thompson, in his

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Birds of Ireland" (i. p. 192), says, “this name was doubtless bestowed upon the bird originally on account of its partiality to willows, which I have frequently remarked, the twigs and branches of the common osier (Salix viminalis) abounding with aphides, being on such occasions its chief favourite." There is yet another suggestion-i.e., that the name may have been bestowed from the circumstance that these little birds make their appearance just as the willow is budding.

It is marvellous how these tiny creatures can sustain the protracted flights which are necessary to transport them from their winter to their summer quarters; that they make these long journeys is well ascertained. On the 23rd of

and yet

April a Willow Wren came on board a vessel

eighty miles from Malta and fifty from Cape Passaro, the nearest land. Two days later another alighted on the rigging sixty miles from Calabria, and one hundred and thirty-five from Mount Etna. On the 26th of April, eighty miles from Zante and one hundred and thirty from Navarino, a Willow Wren and a Chiff-chaff were found dead on board, presumably from exhaustion, as they were apparently uninjured. Many other such instances are on record.

Al

The present species may be regarded as the commonest of the three which visit us, being generally dispersed in favourable localities over the whole of Great Britain and Ireland. though it has not been met with in the Hebrides, the Willow Wren has occasionally been seen in Orkney, and the late Dr. Saxby has recorded a single instance of its occurrence in Shetland. Through every country in Europe it seems to be well known as a periodical migrant.

The winter quarters of the Willow Wren are to a certain extent those of its congeners, that is to say, Northern Africa and Palestine, where

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