384 

 PASSERES. 



^Yl.XUn/Fs. 



SYL VTIDjE. 



AcROOEPHALUS N^vius (Bocldaert * ). 

 THE GRASSHOPPER- WARBLER. 



Salicaria locustella f . 



The Grasshopper- Warbler, so called from its very 

 peculiar song, which resembles the incessant chirping noise 

 made by some of the orthopterous insects — grasshoppers 

 and crickets — is a visitor from the south, coming to this 

 country for the summer, and is first to be heard or seen 

 about the middle of April, leaving us again in September. 

 In its habits, it is shy, vigilant and restless, secreting itself 

 in the thickest vegetation, a patch of furze, a sedge-fen 

 or a hedge-bottom, and creeping along for many yards in 

 succession, more like a mouse than a bird ; seldom going 

 far from covert of some sort, and returning to shelter on the 

 least alarm. Except on its first coming, when the cocks, 

 awaiting the arrival of their mates, display themselves more 

 than is their wont, it is at all times difiicult and, in the 

 breeding- season, when bushes and shrubs are clothed with 



• MotuciUa lucvia, Bocldaert, Table iles Planclies Enlumineez, p. 35, no. 581, 

 fig. 3 (1783). 



t Sylria locxstella, Latham, Iiul. Orn. ii. p. 53 5 (l79o). 



