PASSER ES. ( 79 ) SYLVIID^. 



THE GRASSHOPPEE WAEBLER 



CRICKET BIRD. 



Acrocephalus ncevius. 



The Summer loves not silence ; her great charm 

 Is in the concoiirse of a thousand sounds : — 

 The birds, the winds, the very earth herself 

 Breathing with life at every bursting pore. 

 And that low melody that comes 

 I know not whence or how. 



Faber. 



The Grasshopper Warbler is a summer visitor, generally 

 arriving in Berwickshire in small numbers about the end of 

 May. It is found in a few suitable localities throughout 

 the county, but as it is very shy, and skulks in the thickest 

 covert, such as young fir plantations, where the ground is 

 covered with heather, long grass, and other rank herbage, it 

 is rarely seen. The presence of the bird in its favourite 

 haunts is; however, indicated by its monotonous trill, which 

 resembles the note of the Grasshopper, though somewhat 

 louder and more prolonged. It was heard by me for the 

 first time on the evening of the 9th of June 1876, amongst 

 some whin bushes in a plantation of silver firs on the farm 

 of Nabdean, when the bird allowed me to approach quite 

 close to the spot where it sat and uttered its peculiar song. 

 It remained there only a few days. I did not hear the 

 the note of the Grasshopper Warbler again until the 28th 

 of May 1888, when my wife called my attention to it, as we 

 were walking in my garden about half-past nine o'clock at 



