Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/181

Rh low down, so that I got good views of them. Bonelli's Warbler is a coldly-coloured little bird when seen against fresh, young green leaves, and at a little distance shows no yellow tints. The range of this little bird in Central Europe does not appear to be fully worked out at present.

.—I met with about half a dozen birds in wooded places, a wood, and a garden. The song is marvellously varied, and the variations seem endless; short phrases are tried over three or four times sometimes, long ones only once: the song is a running one to this extent. It is a very remarkable and striking song, but I do not think it is a fine one, the notes being usually very harsh, and wanting in mellowness and melody. In the space of a quarter of an hour, during which the bird sang continually, I could detect no mocking of other birds. There is a characteristic sound about the song of this bird (shared in some degree by at least two others of the genus Hypolais) by which you can recognise it at once; but the bird is sometimes easy to see when you have once made out its greenish-yellow tints against the foliage, and you can note its orange mouth and throbbing throat. Here are some phrases I took down from the song of the bird just mentioned:—"ts'quairk (grating and twangy) tisk tisk; sik sik sik, kik kik kik (high and shrill); tsairk (low and quavering like the cry of young hawks) poo-it poo-it; pit-it pit-it pit-it; tip tip tip; ti-op ti-op; pitch-it pitch-it; kip kip kip care; it-care it-care; ik-waya ik-waya; too-ay, too-ay too-ay; it-tay it-tay it-tay it-tay; wik wik zay" (three times over).

.—Two or three at some pools near Givet (see below); and one singing in a willow bush on the banks of the Meuse at Houx.

.—Just below Givet, in some flat grassy waste land, there are some large pools, perhaps partly formed by digging material for banking in the river (which is locked). The pools are partly grown up with thick beds of reeds, flags, and other water plants, and thickets of willows of two or three species,—some bushes eight or ten feet high. As I approached the pools, and was still at a considerable distance from them, I was attracted by some notes of a peculiarly guttural song, and as I drew nearer I had no doubt that here was one of the birds I