44 BIRDS OF GUERNSEY. 



the high and low part of the Island, but only 

 making its appearance in the cultivated part in the 

 interior as an occasional straggler. It is quite as 

 common in Alderney and the other Islands as it is 

 in Guernsey, in Alderney there being few or no 

 enclosures, and no hedgerow timber. It is more 

 universally! distributed over the whole Island, in the 

 cultivated as well as the wild parts. 



Professor Ansted includes it in his list, but marks 

 it as only occurring in Guernsey and Sark. There 

 are several specimens in the Museum, but I did not 

 see any eggs either there or in young Le Cheminant's 

 collection. This is probably because in Guernsey 

 the Wheatear has a great partiality for laying its 

 eggs under large slabs and boulders of granite per- 

 fectly immovable ; the stones forming one of the 

 Druids' altars in the Vale, were made use of to 

 cover a nest when I was there. 



35. Keed Warbler. Acrocephalus streperus, 

 Vieillot. French, '^Eousserolle effarvatte," "Bee- 

 fin des roseaux." — I did not find out the Eeed 

 Warbler as a Guernsey bird till this jesLV (1878), 

 though it is a rather numerous but very local 

 summer visitant. But Mr. MacCuUoch put me on 

 the right track, as he wrote to me to say — " The 

 Keed W^arbler builds in the Grand Mare. I have 

 seen several of their curious hanging nests brought 

 from there." This put me on the right scent, and 



