A c r o c e ph a lu s a q u a t ic u s (J. F. Gmelin*).
THE AQUATIC WARBLER.
S u f f ic ie n t l y resembling the species last described to have
been more than once mistaken for it, is the bird above figured.
Yet the differences between them are plain enough when
pointed out, and the Aquatic Warbler may be easily recognized
by the prevailing yellow tints of its plumage generally
and by the conspicuous light-coloured stripe which runs along
the middle of its head.
The first example of this bird announced as having occurred
in England was found by the Editor in the collection of
Mr. Borrer, who certified that it was observed, October 19tli,
1853, creeping about among the grass and reeds in an old
brick-pit a little to the west of Hove, near Brighton ; and
that, having been shot, he saw it just after it had been
skinned by Mr. H. Pratt of that town. The bird had been
* Motacilla aquatica, J. F. Gmelin, Syst. Nat. i. p. 953 (1788).
J i t
thought to be an unusually bright-coloured specimen of the
Sedge-Warbler, but its real character being made plain, it
was soon after, by Mr. Borrer’s kind permission, exhibited,
May 8tli, 1866, at a meeting of the Zoological Society (Proc.
Zool. Soc. 1866, p. 210). In the following year Mr. Harting
recorded simultaneously in the ‘ Zoologist’ (s.s. p. 946) and
‘The Ib is ’ (1867, p. 469) the fact that he possessed a
second British specimen of the species, which had been obtained
near Loughborough in Leicestershire hi the summer
of 1864, and sent to him under the belief that it was a
Grasshopper-Warbler, the species next to be included. In
February, 1871, Mr. J. H. Gurney, junior, detected among
the British birds in the Museum at Dover a third example
of the Aquatic Warbler which the Curator, Mr. Charles Gordon,
stated he himself had shot near that town, though his
note of the date has been lost. Mr. Gurney has since
pointed out (Trans. Norf. and Norw. Nat. Soc. 1871—72,
p. 62) that the bird figured as a Sedge-Warbler in Hunt’s
‘ British Ornithology ’ was undoubtedly of the present
species, and accordingly that in all likelihood the Aquatic
Warbler had occurred in Norfolk so long ago as the year
1815—but as no letterpress accompanies the plate, the supposition
must always remain uncertain.
Considering that the ordinary geographical range of this
species extends to the northern coast of France, the marshes
near Dieppe being especially mentioned as a locality for it,
and to the shores of Belgium and Holland—though in both
the countries last named it is rare, the presumption that it
is occasionally a voluntary visitor to this side of the Channel
can scarcely be withstood, and its inclusion in the present
work seems to be fairly defensible. Still there is no reason
to think that it ever dwells among us, and as its habits are
said to resemble very closely those of the Sedge-bird, a brief
account of the species will suffice.
In its geographical distribution the Aquatic Warbler would
seem to be much more limited than the Sedge-bird, and is
perhaps a less eastern species. I t has been noticed by Mr.
Gatke as a straggler to Heligoland, and the Danish ornitliolo