GRASSHOPPER WARBLER.
SALICARIA L0CU8TELLA.
TilE Grasshopper Warbler lias been (raced, I believe, to various parts of Scotland ; further north than Norfolk,
however, I have been enable positively to identify a single specimen. In that county it is numerous,
though local; and the same remark as to its distribution might apply to Sussex and others of the
southern counties.
Although a considerably earlier date has been assigned to the first arrivals of this migrant, it is seldom,
according to my own experience, that any number show themselves till the first week in May. There is
little doubt these Warblers, as a rule, make the passage of the Channel in small scattered parties, after
the manner affected by others of the family; still I have, on two sepáralo occasions, met with large numbers
in the immediate vicinity of the south coast. When shooting in the Nook at Rye, in Sussex, early one
morning in May 1858, I found the samphire and other small salt-water weeds growing on the mudbauks
completely swarming with Grasshopper Warblers. These birds bad apparently just reached the coast, and
were on the point of making their way Inland. There must have been several hundred in a small
patch of weeds of a dozen or twenty acres. There were probably oilier denizens of the marshes among thuni ;
but the half-dozen birds secured by two shots which I fired into the cover wore all of this species. Again,
during the first week in May 18(18 it was evident that a large flight must hare reached the shore a short distance
west of Brighton, many of the hedgerows in the district beiug thickly tenanted with these Warblers as well as
other members of the same family. It was late in the day before the whole of the travellers had worked any
distance inland; hut on the following morning they had all taken their departure.
Thou -h freqi
uently found in the neighbourhood of water, this Warbler is by no means so aquatic ia
more common Reed- and Sedge-Warblers. Several pairs breed round many of the broads
rfolk, frequenting the tangled bushes and rough cover round the marsh-walls. I have also
nests under the shelter of long coarse grass in hay-fields and on bramble-covered banks
ern counties.
lally concealed with the utmost care, is composed of the dried strands of various grasses
architects, whether inhabiting the moist flat districts of the eastern counties or the dense
.ugh hanks of Sussex, appear to make use oE much the same materials. The eggs have a
s habits as the
i the eas tof No
their i
the mo esouth
The est, usu
nd plants The
edgerows and ro
dull whH« ground (with a pinkish tinge when fresh) thickly speckled with Gne spots of light red.
The curious note of this species has frequently attracted my attention in localities where I had no
notion the bird was to be met with. It is useless, in these pages, to attempt to describe this singular
performance, not inaptly denominated by several authors the " trill." Words, indeed, can scarcely convey
an idea of the strangely deceptive sounds as they rise and fall in the still morning air, the movement
of the head of the bird producing a mysterious uncertainty as to the direction from which the note is
uttered. Though very diliieult to catch a glimpse of during the day, these Warblers may generally he observed