GRASSHOPPER-WARBLER 



509 



GrasshoDDer- '^^^ grasshopper -warbler (sometimes described as 

 Warbler Loaistdla lociistella) takes its English and Latin 



(^Loeustella nsevia) "^^^^ from the curious resemblance of its note to 

 that of a grasshopper or field-cricket, although, as 

 might be expected, the song of the bird is longer and louder than that 

 of the insect. It is by this peculiar " cricking " note that the presence 

 of the grasshopper-warbler is generally revealed, for the bird is the 

 most skulking of its kind, creeping about in thick herbage almost 

 after the manner of a field-mouse. The species is the typical repre- 

 sentative of a genus with about nine species, all of which breed in 

 Europe or northern and Central Asia, and visit Africa or India and 

 the neighbouring countries in winter. From the reed-wren and its 

 relatives these warblers differ by the very 

 slight development of the bristles in the 

 neighbourhood of the gape, which are 

 indeed almost rudimentary, and by the 

 much more graduated tail, in which the 

 outer feathers are less than three-fourths 

 the total length. In the wing the second 

 primary quill is the longest ; the first, as 

 in the reed-wren group, being very short, 

 not reaching the tips of the greater coverts. 

 The under tail-coverts are also unusually 

 long. 



In general appearance the grasshopper- 

 warbler is very like a sedge-bird, from 

 which it may be distinguished, in addition 



to the above-mentioned generic characters, by its superior size (total 

 length 5^ inches), the absence of a distinct eyebrow-stripe, and the olive- 

 brown upper-parts streaked with darker brown, the middle of the feathers 

 being darker than the sides ; the wing-coverts and quills, as well as 

 the tail-feathers, in like manner have paler olive -brown margins ; 

 while the middle regions of the throat, breast, and abdomen are 

 whitish, and the sides brown tinged with buff. Hens are characterised 

 by a warmer tone of brown above and a more tawny tinge beneath ; 

 and in young birds the throat and breast are tinged with sulphur- 

 yellow, and the throat and fore part of the neck finely spotted with 

 blackish brown. 



The greater part of Europe, at least as far north as the Baltic, 

 and thence eastwards to the heart of Central Asia, constitutes the 

 breeding-range of the grasshopper-warbler. Arriving late in April, 



GKASSHOl'PEK-WAKBLEK. 



