Page:The British Warblers A History with Problems of Their Lives - 9 of 9.djvu/21

 ashy brown, the throat uniform rusty buff and the remainder of the under parts the same colour, only slightly more greyish on the upper breast, more rusty buff on the flanks, and more whitish on the abdomen. The under side of the tail and wings is brownish lavender and the smaller under wing-coverts lavender buff.

In England this species is resident. It is found in Hampshire extending to the Isle of Wight, Dorsetshire and possibly Wiltshire, Surrey, Berkshire, Sussex, and in smaller numbers in Cornwall, Essex, east Suffolk, Shropshire, and probably Oxfordshire. It is also found in the Channel Islands, but from Ireland there is only one record, a specimen having been obtained at the Tuskar Lighthouse. The bird is principally an inhabitant of south-western Europe. In Spain and Portugal it is locally common, but it is absent from north-eastern and central France, though found in the north-west, south, and at the base of the Pyrenees. Its eastern range in Europe does not seem to extend beyond Italy, where it occurs in the central and southern provinces, as well as in Corsica and Sardinia. There are records of its occurrence in Malta, and on migration Gätke reported it in Heligoland. In Morocco, Algeria, and Tunis it is common in places.

I am not in a position to interpret the intricacies of this bird's behaviour with any approach to scientific accuracy. I can only give the impressions left upon my mind after spending a comparatively short time in their midst at an early stage in their sexual process. Of the later stages in that process—that is to say, of the behaviour leading up to the actual discharge of the sexual function, of the building of the nest, and of the rearing of the young—I know nothing;