Pennant in 1768, briefly but unmistakably described its
gestures, though the latter had already enrolled it among
British birds from an example received out of Shropshire,
and there has since been comparatively little confusion
about it. White, whose words need not here be quoted,
justly remarked that Kay had no personal knowledge of this
bird, for that described by him, after a communication from
Mr. Kalpli Johnson of Brignall, in Yorkshire, was assuredly
the Wood-Wren, though taken by Pennant to be the present
species. By other old authors it has also been almost inextricably
confounded with the Tree-Pipit. I t was sufficiently
well portrayed in the ‘ Planches Enluminées ’ (no. 581, fig. 3),
but Buffon’s Fauvette tachetée (Hist. Nat. Ois. v. p. 149),
referred to that figure, seems, like Brisson’s species of the
same name, to be founded on Aldrovandi’s description of a
very different bird. Singularly enough, Montbeillard, Buffon’s
colleague, gives in the same volume (p. 42) a translation
of Pennant’s earliest account, applying to the bird the
name of Locustelle, and remarking that it had not been
observed out of England.
Unless the old birds are closely watched and seen carrying
materials for building or food to their young, the nest is
very difficult to find. Montagu, writing in 1802, mentions
his having found a nest, but though he was clearly the first
to effect the discovery, he does not say in what year or where
it was made. Mr. K. K. Wingate of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
having long wished to get the eggs, in June, 1815, eyed
“ the bird to the distant passage on the top of a whin-bush
by which it entered and left the nest. This he found was
built at the bottom of a deep narrow furrow or ditch, overhung
by the prickly branches of the whin, and grown over with
thick coarse grass, matted together year after year, to the
height of about two feet ; all of which lie was obliged to take
away piece-meal before he succeeded in gaining the prize.”
The Grasshopper-Warbler is found in places of very
varied character. In no part of England probably was it
more abundant than in the great fens of the Bedford-Level
district, before that was drained and reclaimed, but it affects
also dry soils, and inhabits indifferently heaths, commons,
woods and even enclosures where the hedgerows are tangled
and thick enough to afford good hiding-places. The nest,
which is built in May, is cup-shaped, about four inches
across over the top, formed externally of coarse grass, sedge
or the dried stems of some species of Galium, mixed with
moss, and lined with finer bents within. This bird lays
from five to seven eggs, which measure from -75 to ’65, by
from -57 to ‘51 in. and are of a pale pinkish-white, freckled
with darker reddish-brown, the markings most commonly
dispersed all over the shell, but often collected in a cap at
either end or in a belt, while occasionally irregular dark
hair-like lines are seen more or less encircling the girth.
Besides all the counties of England and Wales in which,
with scarcely an exception, it has been ascertained by Mr.
More to breed yearly, though always local and nowadays
nowhere plentiful, the Grasshopper-"W arbler has been traced
by Mr. R. Gray as a regular visitor to Scotland from the
Solway to the Firtli of Forth on the east side, and as far
northward as Bonaw in Argyllshire on the west. It seems,
however, to miss the border counties of Berwick and Roxburgh,
as well as Selkirk. In Ireland Thompson regarded
it as being probably a regular summer-bird in suitable
localities throughout the island. I t is one of the many
wayfarers that have occurred in Heligoland, and on the
Continent is found in Belgium, Holland and as far north as
Sleswick, where it breeds. I t does not cross the Baltic, but
is distributed throughout North Germany, while further
eastward it attains a higher latitude, since Herr Meves
procured it near Lake Onega in Russia. Thence it is reported
as extending across the whole of southern Siberia to
the Pacific; but, as with many other birds, it has possibly
been confounded with allied species, of which some five or
six have been distinguished. Its southern limits in Asia,
supposing it to occur there,* cannot be even approximately
given. I t was not met with by Canon Tristram in Pales-
* I t has been several times recorded from India, but the Indian specimens
examined by the Editor are certainly distinct, and are probably referable to. the