SYLVIIN.E. 



91 



SAVrS WARBLER. 



LOCUSTELLA LUSCINIOIDES (Savi). 



As remarked by Professor Newton, in the best account extant of 

 Savi's Warbler (Yarrell's British Birds, 4th Ed., i. p. 389), there can 

 be Httle doubt that this bird was a regular (though never a very 

 abundant) summer-visitant to England, until the drainage of the 

 fens and meres of the Eastern Counties unfitted large districts for 

 its habitation. The first example ever brought to the notice of 

 naturalists — still at the Norwich Museum — was shot in Norfolk 

 during the month of May, in the early part of this century ; but 

 having been submitted to Temminck it was pronounced by him to 

 be a variety of the Reed- Warbler ; while some subsequent confusion 

 in his mind was, doubtless, the cause of his w^holly erroneous state- 

 ment that Cetti's Warbler (a very different species, with only ten tail- 

 feathers) had been killed in England. Not until 1824 was the 

 specific distinctness of Savi's Warbler recognized by the Italian 

 ornithologist after whom it is named. In after years about six 

 examples of the bird, and one or two of its nests, were taken in 

 Norfolk ; while in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire a larger 

 number of both were obtained in fens which are, at the present day, 

 with two exceptions, completely drained. The last British specimen 

 was obtained at Surlingham, Norfolk, in June 1856 ; and none are 

 known to be in existence except those from the Eastern Counties, 



