Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/589

Rh W H I W H I 553 member of the council of state, striving to keep on good terms with all parties. After Cromwell s return from the Scottish war in 1G51 Whitelocke was much consulted by him ; but he gave offence by suggesting a restoration of the young king. After the dissolution of the Long Parlia ment in 1653 he was sent as ambassador to Sweden, as he thought, merely to get him out of the way. Returning in July 1654, he was chosen member of the first parliament of the Protectorate by the county of Buckingham, and he again became a commissioner of the great seal. In May 1655, after the dissolution of that parliament, he refused to execute an ordinance made by the Protector and council only for the reform of Chancery, and was consequently dismissed in June, but was soon afterwards appointed com missioner of the treasury. He again sat for Buckingham shire in the second Protectorate parliament in 1657, and took an active part in forwarding the Humble Petition and Advice. In December he was appointed one of Crom well s lords. After Cromwell s death Whitelocke rallied to his son, and in January 1659 was again a commissioner of the great seal. After Richard s fall he sat in the council of state, and when the Rump was turned out by the soldiers he accepted an appointment to the army s committee of safety. On 1st November he became keeper of the great seal ; but on the return of the Rump he thought it prudent to go into hiding. Monk s arrival delivered him from his fears ; but, when the Convention Parliament was chosen, he, characteristically &quot; foreseeing what would come to pass, did not think fit to labour to be a Parliament man.&quot; Of course he accepted the Restoration and was included in the Act of Oblivion. He died at his seat at Chilton in Wilt shire in 1675. WHITETHROAT, a name commonly given to two species of little birds, one of which, the Motacilla sylvia of Linnaeus and Sylvia rufa l or S. cinerea of some recent authors, is regarded as the type, not only of the genus Sylvia, but of the so-called Family Sylviidx (cf. WARBLEK). Very widely spread over Great Britain, in some places tolerably common, and by its gesticulations and song rather conspicuous, it is one of those birds which has gained a familiar nickname, and &quot; Peggy Whitethroat &quot; is the anthropomorphic appellation of school boys and milkmaids, though it shares &quot;Nettle-creeper&quot; and other homely names with perhaps more than one congener, while to the writers and readers of books it is by way of distinction the Greater Whitethroat. The song of this bird, except by association with the season at which it is uttered, can scarcely be called agreeable, some of its notes being very harsh ; but the performer may be seen to be always in earnest, erecting the feathers of his crown, puffing out those of his throat, shaking his wings, and making other rapid movements expressive of his feelings. Occasionally he will deliver his song as he flies up in a peculiar fashion, describing small circles in the air, stopping with a jerk, and then returning to the spot whence he arose. The Lesser Whitethroat, Sylvia curruca,* is both in habits and plumage a much less sightly bird : the predominant reddish brown of the upper surface, and especially the rufous edging of the wing- feathers, that are so distinctive of its larger congener, arc wanting, and the whole plumage above is of a smoky-grey, while the bird in its movements is never obtrusive, and it rather shuns than courts observation, generally keeping among the thickest foliage, whence its rather monotonous song, uttered especially in sultry weather, may be continually heard without a glimpse of the vocalist being presented. The nests of each of these species are very pretty works of art, firmly built of bents or other plant-stalks, and usually lined with horsehair ; but the sides and bottom are often so finely woven as to be like open basket-work, and the eggs, splashed, spotted, or streaked with olive-brown, are frequently visible from beneath through the interstices of the fabric. This style of nest-building seems to be common to all the species of the genus Sylvia, as now restricted, and in many districts has obtained for the builders the 1 This specific term has been very constantly but most inaccurately, not to say absurdly, used for a very different bird, the Chiffchaff (cf. [Willow] WREN). Its only proper application is to the Whitethroat, 2 Of course this is not the curruca of ancient writers, that being almost certainly the Hedge-Sparrow (see SPARROW), the ordinary dupe of the Cuckow. name of &quot;Hay-Jack,&quot; quite without reference to the kind of bird which puts the nests together, and thus is also applied to the Blackcap, S. atricapilla, and the Garden-Warbler this last being merely a book-name S. salicaria (S. hortensis of some writers). The former of these deserves mention as one of the sweetest songsters of Great Britain, and fortunately it is very generally distributed in summer. To quote the praise bestowed upon it, in more than one passage, by Gilbert White would here be superfluous. The name Blackcap is applicable only to the cock bird, who further differs from his brown-capped mate by the purity of his ashy-grey upper plumage ; but, notwithstanding the marked sexual difference in appearance, he takes on himself a considerable share of the duties of incubation, and has been declared by more than one writer to sing while so employed a statement that seems hardly credible. All these four birds, as a rule, leave Great Britain at the end of summer to winter in the south. 4 Two other species, one certainly belonging to the same genus, S. orphca, and the other, S. nisoria, a somewhat aberrant form, have occurred two or three times in Great Britain. The rest, numbering perhaps a dozen, must be passed over. Nearly allied to Sylvia, if indeed it can be properly separated, is Mclizophilus, which consists of two species, one of them the curious Dartford Warbler of English writers, M. undatus or provincialis. This is on many accounts a very interesting bird, for it is one of the few of its family that winter in England, a fact the more remarkable when it is known to be migratory in most parts of the Continent. Its distribution in England is very local, and chiefly confined to the southern counties, where through causes very in sufficiently known it has of late years become so scarce that its extermination seems probable. It is a pretty little dark-coloured bird, which here and there may be seen on furze-grown heaths from Kent to Cornwall. In spasmodic gesticulations the cock surpasses the Whitethroat ; but these feats are almost confined to the pair ing-season, and at other times of the year the bird s habits are retiring. For a species with wings so feebly formed it has a wide range, inhabiting nearly all the countries of the Mediterranean seaboard, from Palestine to the Strait of Gibraltar, and thence along the west coast of Europe to the English Channel ; but every where else it seems to be very local. This may be the most convenient place for noticing the small group of Warblers belonging to the well-marked genus llypolais, which, though in general appearance and certain habits resembling the Phylloscopi (cf. [Willow] WREN), would seem usually to have little to do with those birds, and to be rather allied to the Sylviinx, if not to the AcrocepJialinas (cf. WARBLER). They have a remark ably loud song, and in consequence are highly valued on the con tinent of Europe, where two species at least spend the summer. One of them, H. icterina, has occurred more than once in the British Islands, and their absence as regular visitors is to be regretted. Among the minor characteristics of this little group is one afforded by their eggs, which are of a deeper or paler brownish pink, spotted with purplish black. Their nests are beautiful structures, combin ing warmth with lightness in a way that cannot be fully appreciated by any description. A great number of other more or less allied forms, in teresting as they are in various ways, cannot for want of space be here mentioned. (A. N.) WHITFIELD, JOHN CLARKE (1770-1836), organist and composer, was born at Gloucester, 13th December 1770, and educated at Oxford under Dr Philip Hayes. In 1789 he was appointed organist of the parish church at Ludlow. Four years later he took the degree of Mus. Bac. at Cam bridge, and in 1795 he was chosen organist of Armagh cathedral, whence he removed in the same year to Dublin, with the appointments of organist and master of the children at St Patrick s cathedral and Christclmrch. Driven from Ireland by the rebellion of 1798, he accepted the post of organist at Trinity and St John s Colleges, Cambridge, and about the same time assumed the surname of Whitfield, in addition to that of Clarke, by which he had been previously known. He took the degree of Mus. Doc. at Cambridge in 1799, and in 1810 proceeded to the same grade at Oxford. In 1820 he was elected organist and master of the choristers at Hereford cathedral ; and on the death of Dr Haig he was appointed professor of 3 This bird, if it has any true English name at all, should perhaps be called the &quot; Pettichaps,&quot; that being applied to it, though not exclusively, in Lancashire and Yorkshire, but not, it would seem, in Northampton shire or Hampshire (cf. Yarrell s Br. Birds, 4th ed. pp. 415, 416). 4 The Blackcap is recorded as having occurred several times in England in winter ; but its tarrying was doubtless involuntary. XXIV. 70