296 THE GRASSHOPPER-WARBLER. 



The Grasshopper- Warbler, or Chirper. 



(Salicaria Locustella.) Mild. 



" The happy birds that change their sky 

 To build and brood ; that live their lives 

 From land to land ; and, in my breast, 

 Spring wakens too ; and my regret 

 Becomes an April violet, 

 And buds and blossoms like the rest." — Tennyson. 



This is a late summer migrant, seldom seen in Fife before the 

 first of May, and leaving in the end of September. It gets its 

 name from its low chirp or warble, like that of the larger grass- 

 hopper or mole-cricket — GryUa Talpa. It is not common here, 

 and is still rarer by its artful and peculiar habit of concealment 

 — wriggling like a mouse through the closest brambles or other 

 underwood. Its low, narrow-pointed head enables it to do what 

 no other bird can, while its plain colour also helps it from being 

 seen. Its slender and elegant form is also in its favour. I have 

 seen it on the banks of the Eden, near Dairsie Bridge ; also on 

 the Kenly Burn ; and at the old fir-park wood on Tentsmuir 

 amongst rashes. But as it lays in the very heart of brambles, 

 furze bushes, or under the herbage, its nest is seldom found ; 

 but when so few are got, and so seldom harried, the wonder is 

 they are not more common. Lying on the north bank of Eden 

 one day, near Nydie, I watched one, and got its nest with eggs 

 in a close hedge about three feet from the bank ; the eggs were 

 tf by tV °^ an i ncn > larger than the sedge- warbler's — Salicaria 

 Phragmites ; the nest was lined with moss. It is loosely formed, 

 like the whitethroat's, generally composed of the ladies' bed-straw 

 (Galium) and moss. The eggs are five or six, sometimes seven, 

 flesh-coloured, freckled all over with carmine specks — easily 

 known from any other species. To show how difficult it is to 

 find their nest, Mr Hewitson tells how a keen egg-collector, after 

 long watching, eyed the bird at the distant passage to its nest, 

 which was at the bottom of a deep, narrow ditch, overhung by 

 the whin, and grown over w r ith thick coarse grass, matted 

 together year after year till two feet high. He searched until 

 tired ; and saw there was nothing for it but to take away the 



