628 Birds in the Vicinity of Tooting, Surrey, 



long concluding note is often heard. We seek in vain for 

 this species in the open brake, upon commons, unless there 

 are a few trees introduced. It comes a good deal into gar- 

 dens, and is more eminently frugivorous than the whitethroat 

 fauvet. 



The last-mentioned bird abounds everywhere in the hedges, 

 and in the open brake, frequently mounting in the air to sing, 

 as seems to be the universal habit of brake birds. It arrives 

 about the same time as the preceding. This is the only spe- 

 cies of the present genus that was found in Sutherlandshire, 

 by the party of naturalists who visited that county in the 

 summer of 1834. But a very few were seen in that northern 

 habitat. I gladly avail myself of this occasion to recommend 

 to the perusal of every naturalist Mr. Selby's pamphlet On the 

 Quadrupeds and Birds inhabiting the County of Sutherland, 

 which was published in Jameson's Journals for January and 

 March of the present year. They will derive thence much 

 interesting information. 



The Dusky Furzelin, or Dartford Warbler of the books, 

 is here extremely scarce, and very local. In one situation which 

 I knew of, the breed seems to have been quite destroyed by 

 collectors of specimens. 



That singular bird the Locustella, or Grasshopper Warbler, 

 is not rare on the heaths around London, although the con- 

 trary has been asserted. Its strange voice is generally first 

 heard on the second week in April ; and it departs early, as is 

 satisfactorily shown at p. 106. of the present Volume. I have 

 heard it emit its cry when flying rather slowly from bush to bush, 

 but never when suspended overhead, as is there stated. It gapes 

 very widely indeed whilst uttering this; and the sound is accom- 

 panied by a tremulous thrill of its whole frame. I believe that 

 its mode of progression is ambulatory, as in the pipits ; but 

 this I cannot positively assert ; for, though I have many times 

 seen it rise from the ground, in little bare open spaces between 

 the bushes, the dinginess of its colour has ever prevented me 

 from noticing it before it flew. Sometimes I have observed 

 this species in very dense hedges, and still less commonly in 

 the interior of thick woods: but the open brake upon the com- 

 mon is its normal habitat ; where it by no means peculiarly 

 affects, as it has been often said, the lower and more damp 

 situations, but occurs frequently in the driest places. I have 

 often met with it where the furze is extremely low, clipped 

 and stunted, and mingled with hassocky tufts of grass. Its 

 nest, I suspect, will be found to rest invariably upon the 

 ground. 



The Sedge Reedling is common, and found everywhere in 



