SYLVIIN.^. 



79 



THE AQUATIC WARBLER. 



AcROCEPHALUs AQUATicus (J. E. Gmeliii). 



Owing to its similarity to the preceding species, all the examples 

 of the A.quatic Warbler hitherto obtained in England appear to have 

 been originally overlooked. Professor Newton was the first to 

 recognize a specimen in the collection of Mr. W. Borrer, who said 

 that it had been shot on October 19th 1853, while creeping about 

 among the grass and reeds in an old brick-pit near Hove, Sussex. 

 This example having been exhibited before the Zoological Society 

 (P. Z. S. 1866, p. 210), it was subsequently examined by Mr. 

 Harting, who announced (Ibis 1S67, p. 469) that he also possessed 

 an Aquatic Warbler, obtained near Loughborough, in Leicestershire, 

 in the summer of 1864, and forwarded to him, by a friend, under 

 the impression that it was a Grasshopper-Warbler. In February 

 187 1, Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun. detected in the Museum at Dover a 

 third example, which the Curator, Mr. C. Gordon, stated that he had 

 shot near that town. Mr. Gurney has further pointed out that the 

 bird figured as a Sedge- Warbler in Hunt's ' British Ornithology ' 

 was undoubtedly an Aquatic Warbler, in all probability obtained in 

 Norfolk about the year 1815. The conspicuous buff streak down 

 the middle of the crown in the Aquatic Warbler is an unfailing mark 

 of distinction between this species and the Sedge- Warbler. 



