72 



GARDEN WARBLER. 



Sylvia hortensis (Bechstein). 



Summer visitant ; generally distributed ; more abundant in the 

 south and middle of the county than further north. 



This species was first made known as a British bird by 

 Willughby, to whom a specimen was sent from Yorkshire 

 by Mr. Jessop, Broom Hall, Sheffield, who called it 

 41 Pettychaps " (Will. "Orn.," 1676, p. 26). 



Thomas Allis, in 1844, wrote as follows : 



Curruca hortensis. Garden Warbler. Met with near Huddersfield 

 and Hebden Bridge ; frequent in gardens and shrubberies near Halifax ; 

 more frequent than atricapilla near Sheffield ; and less so near Leeds 

 and York. In the East Riding in its [passage] in the spring, but 

 seldom breed there.* 



This sober plumaged warbler arrives late in April or early 

 in May, generally in the first week of the latter month, its 

 earliest appearance being in 1885, when one was noted on 

 28th April, at Scarborough. It usually takes its departure 

 in August or September, at which period a coast migration 

 is sometimes noticed passing south. 



Where its favourite gardens and copses are to be found 

 it is pretty generally distributed, most abundantly in the 

 south and south-west, and it may be described as fairly 

 common in the Central Plain, but further to the north-west 

 it is somewhat scarce, yet not infrequent in the Forest of 

 Bowland, and it is not uncommon in the Lower Wharfe 

 and Nidd districts. 



It is moderately, still not uncommonly, diffused in the 

 East Riding, and is more frequently observed on its passage 

 in spring and autumn than as a nesting species, though it 

 breeds in several localities, noticeably about Beverley. Near 

 Scarborough it is fairly abundant, and so up the coast to 

 Whitby, Loftus, and in Cleveland ; the same remark may 

 also be applied to its status in Teesdale. 



* Allis was misinformed as to its status in the East Riding. 



