mill incidental Hemarks, 341 



trill of the grasshopper warbler (Salicaria Locustella), or, as it 

 is better named by the peasantry in these parts, " the cricket 

 bird," or the " rattlesnake bird ; " the former, of course, 

 from the similarity of its cry to that of the mole cricket 

 (Gryllotalpa), and the latter (by which term it is here most 

 generally known) from the equally close resemblance which 

 it bears to the rattle of the Crotalus [rattlesnake] ; though it 

 is difficult to imagine how this should be sufficiently well 

 known [in England] to give rise to a provincial name. 

 April 10. was also the day on which I heard it for the first 

 time last year. I did not this season again notice it till the 

 17th, about which time they appeared in considerable numbers. 

 On the first arrival of this curious species, it sedulously hides 

 in the very densest furze or bramble coverts, rarely emits its 

 strange sibilous rattle, and even then its voice hardly ever 

 seems to proceed from the true direction. This ventriloquis- 

 ing faculty (as it is absurdly called) is well known. The 

 bird can, at pleasure, send forth (as it were) its voice to the 

 distance of two or three yards ; so that, by merely turning 

 round its head, the sound often appears to be shifted to 

 double that distance. The same effect is produced also in 

 the common meadow crake, and in precisely the same manner, 

 by a mere turn of the head. As soon as the cricket birds, 

 however, have fixed their abode, and the females begin to 

 arrive, the males cease for a time to exercise this faculty, and 

 for a very obvious reason ; otherwise, were five or six of them 

 to be emulously trilling in a furze brake, as is frequently the 

 case, the female would often be sent in a wrong direction, 

 and might, it is not unlikely, introduce herself to one of the 

 rivals : but this the males take care to prevent, not only by 

 ceasing to ventriloquise, but by sitting exposed on the top- 

 most twigs of the bushes, and rattling so loudly that they 

 may be heard at a very great distance. They are then so 

 bold, that, even if shot at and missed, they fly only for two 

 or three yards, and then recommence immediately, as if no- 

 thing had happened. No sooner, however, are they paired, 

 than their habit of close concealment returns, and also their 

 deceptive mode of uttering their cry. Having lately pro- 

 cured a considerable number of these birds for different 

 friends, I have observed that they vary somewhat in plumage, 

 some being much spotted on the breast, while others are 

 spotless, and the colour of the upper parts also varying a 

 little in different individuals ; but there is no fixed diflference 

 between the plumage of the sexes. I have often been sur- 

 prised at the great strength of the muscles of the leg in this 

 species, which are partly ossified, as in gallinaceous birds. 



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