122 THE BIRDS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



46. GRASSHOPPER WARBLER. 



Locustella ncevia. 



As far as my personal observation has enabled me 

 to judge, I am inclined to consider this species as by 

 no means common in our neighbourhood, but as it is 

 a singularly local bird, and rarely seen without special 

 search even in localities where it abounds, it is quite 

 possible that it may have escaped my notice. The 

 only specimen that I have obtained near Lilford is a 

 young bird which was shot by one of my sons on 

 Wigsthorpe Wolds, August 21st, 1879, and I have 

 once, if not more often, heard its remarkable note 

 about the same place. Mr. A. G. Elliot, of Stamford, 

 informs me that this bird is plentiful on Barrowden 

 Heath and Lufferiham Common ; in the former locality 

 I heard it, apparently in some numbers, several years 

 ago. Although, as I have above stated, the Grass- 

 hopper Warbler is not often to be seen without 

 special search, the singular note of the male bird 

 soon betrays their presence ; it somewhat resembles 

 that of a cricket or grasshopper, and has gained for 

 the bird its usual English name, but it is much more 

 continuous, and as Yarrell, quoting John Macgillivray, 

 truly says, " once heard can never be mistaken for 

 the sound of those insects." In the Fen country, 

 where this species was formerly very abundant, and 

 in certain spots of which it is still tolerably common, 

 it is known as "Heeler" or "Reel-bird." The only 

 close observations of this bird which I have hitherto 

 been able to carry out were made, in the early summer 

 of 1856, on a rough piece of furze and thorn-grown 

 grazing-land adjoining Dartmoor in North Devon: 



