82 BRITISH BIRDS 



Besides the two described, three more species of this group of 

 warblers have been numbered as British birds, having been foimd 

 as stragglers in this country. These are the marsh-warbler {Aero- 

 cephalus paluatris), the great reed-warbler {Acrocephalua tur- 

 do'ide8)f and the aquatic warbler {Acrocephalus aquaticus). 



Grasshopper Warbler. 

 Locustella noevia. 



Upper parts light greenish brown ; the middle of each feather, 

 being darker, gives a mottled appearance ; under parts very pale 

 brown, spotted with darker brown on neck and breast ; feet light 

 brown. Length, five and a half inches. i^e7?iaZe without the brown 

 spots on the breast. 



This warbler arrives in our country about the middle of April, 

 sometimes a week, or even a fortnight, earlier. In the melodious 

 family to which it belongs it is distinguished by the singularity of 

 its voice, which has no musical, or songlilie, or even birdlike quality 

 in it, but is Uke the sound produced by some stridulating insects. li 

 is to be found in suitable situations throughout England and Wales, 

 and in many parts of Scotland and Ireland. It frequents both dry 

 and marshy ground where dense masses of vegetation afford it 

 the close cover which would seem necessary to its frail existence ; 

 thus it is found in reed-beds growing in the water, and in hedges 

 and thorny thickets, and among the furze-bushes on open commons. 

 Although thus widely distributed in the British Islands, it is, like 

 the nightingale, very local, and reappears faithfully each spring at 

 the same spot. How strong the attachment to place, or home, is 

 in this species will be seen in the following fact : Having found a 

 small colony of about half a dozen grasshopper warblers inhabiting 

 a circumscribed spot in the middle of an extensive common, I went 

 back to the place in three consecutive summers, and each time found 

 the birds in the same bushes. Yet the dozen or twenty furze and 

 bramble bushes which they inhabited were in no way, that one 

 could see, better suited to their requirements than hundreds of other 

 bushes of the same description scattered over the surrounding land. 

 Nor were any other individuals of the species to be found in the 

 neighbourhood, except one pair, which were always to be met with 

 in some brambles about a quarter of a mile from the spot inhabited 

 by the other birds. Such a fact appears to show that, nut only do 



