I9I2. Patten. — Grasshopper- JVard/ers on Migration. 139 



the beams of light in their revolutions illuminated it, and 

 passing by, threw it into utter gloom, the bird all the while 

 skulked. I might have captured it with my hand, but 

 this meant a climb, fraught with danger, and even when I 

 would have reached up to the ring the bird might have 

 shpped away, so I brought to my aid my landing-net, and, 

 securing my specimen, identified it as a Grasshopper 

 Warbler. Here then was a case in which a bird came right 

 up to the lantern without striking, and remained so quiet 

 that unless I had made a special search it would no doubt 

 have escaped observation. This night was calm and the 

 bird found no difficulty in sticking to its scant hiding place, 

 but, as we shall see directly, the weather was not so favour- 

 able on the next occasion that I saw Grasshopper-Warblers 

 at the lantern. In regard to the above-mentioned birds 

 which I saw flitting through the rays (other than the 

 Wheatears and Starlings), I may say that I am very strongly 

 of the opinion that they were Grasshopper-Warblers. Of 

 course there may have been some rare species also 

 among them. But it seems unlikely that even the 

 somewhat rarer Irish birds, such as the one under con- 

 sideration, the Blackcap, Garden -Warbler, Redstart, Whin- 

 chat, and others, migrate singly or in couples, but rather in 

 parties, some very likely composed of considerable numbers. 

 Saunders in his "Manual of British Birds" (Second Edition, 

 p. 90), when speaking of the Grasshopper-Warbler says 

 " This species appears to migrate in large parties, for Booth 

 observed several hundreds at daybreak early in May, all 

 congregated on a small patch of some dozen or twenty acres 

 of mud-banks covered with Marsh-samphire and other 

 weeds, near Rye, in Sussex, and evidently making their way 

 inland." I may say that the birds which I saw in the rays 

 and took to be Grasshopper-Warblers, though fairly 

 numerous, did not form large congregations or so called 

 " rushes " which I have seen in the migrations of Willow- 

 Warblers, Wheatears, Skylarks, and some other species. 



Eight nights now elapsed before I saw the Grasshopper- 

 Warbler again. On Saturday April 20th at 11.25 P-m., 

 I netted the second specimen in the same way as the 

 first, but with this important difference to be noted, namely, 



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