GIIASSFIOPPER CHIRPER. 733 



It is a true babbler, a thoroucrh mocking-bird, but may easily 

 be distinguished from its congener, not only by the buff" streak 

 over the eye, but by its frequenting the hedge-rows more than 

 it. Close to Leicester, it haunts the same hedges as the White- 

 throat, but I have usually found the hedges where both these 

 birds abound, to be choked in the summer with reeds, horse- 

 tails, and rushes, and often composed of white sloe and crab, 

 sometimes hazel and white willow. AVhen this bird comes to 

 us first, he is very shy, and will scarcely let us get a peep at 

 his striped cheek. This diffidence continues until May, when 

 his spouse arrives, and then he at once becomes loquacious. It 

 does not weave its nest amongst the reed stalks so commonly 

 as the ISIarsh Reedling does. I have one attached to the fork 

 of an osier twig, about three feet from the ground. It is com- 

 posed of hypna, small roots of dry grass and some wool, the 

 lining of dry grass without any mixture of hair ; its depth about 

 an inch and a half. I have never known this bird to stop with 

 us after the 20th of September." 



SIBILATRIX LOCUSTELLA. THE GRASSHOPPER 

 CHIRPER. Vol. II, p. 399. 



" The Grasshopper Warbler," according to Mr Harley, " is 

 common in some of our braky lanes and unplashed hedgerows. 

 On the 19th of April 1884 I heard it singing for the first time. 

 the apparent ventriloquism of this bird is produced by moving 

 its head about, in the manner of the male Goatsucker and the 

 Corn Crake. In the month of June I have heard its trilling 

 note at ten o'clock in the evening, the males then appearing to 

 rival each other. The sibilous cry is monotonous and pro- 

 longed, like the purring of a cat, the cry of the Goatsucker, or 

 the drone of the Chaffer, It leaves us about the 20th of Sep- 

 tember." 



