74 THE BIRDS OF SUSSEX. 



ORPHEAN WARBLER. 



Sylvia orphea. 



The only reason to snppose that this species has ever 

 occurred in Snssex, is tlie statement made by Mr. Gould, on 

 Mr. Howard Saunders's authority^ and rcjieated in the fourth 

 edition of YarrelFs B. B. (vol. i. p. 424), to the cft'ect that 

 eggs believed to have belonged to it have been taken at East 

 Grinstead. 



WOOD-WREN. 



Phi/lloscopiis sihilatrix. 



Gilbert White seems to have been the first to clearly dis- 

 tinguish this species, though it is stated in Yarrell's ' British 

 Birds ' (vol. i. pp. 386, 4.28, note) that Johnson, of Brignall, 

 in Yorkshire, had described it to Bay. It is a summer im- 

 migrant, somewhat local, arriving in the first or second week 

 in May, when, after passing over the Downs and the clays 

 of the Weald, and remaining a few days among the high 

 trees on its route, it settles its abode in the large woods of 

 beech and oak in the dry or sandy districts ; Stanmer Park, 

 however, though on the chalk, is one of its favourite haunts. 

 It is particularly abundant in St. Leonard's Forest, where 

 its loud sibilant note may be heard in all directions, keeping 

 up the while a constant shivering of its wings. It has also, 

 when the female is sitting, another note, resembling the 

 syllable '^chee'^ three or four times repeated. It lives 

 entirely on insects, occasionally capturing them on the wing. 

 It builds its nest on the ground, generally among drifts of 



