REED WARBLER. 89 



Messrs. W. Eagle Clarke and T. Laidlaw watched an 

 undoubted example of this species for some time, at only 

 a few yards' distance, in the garden at Kilnsea Warren, in 

 September 1897. 



REED WARBLER. 

 Acrocephalus streperus (Vieillot}. 



Summer visitant ; very locally distributed. 



Thomas Allis's Report on Yorkshire Birds, 1844, contains 

 the first known county reference to this species, thus : 



Salicaria arundinacea. Reed Warbler. Arthur Strickland says : 

 " I have no doubt this species would be found in this [the East] Riding 

 if properly sought, but I am not aware I ever did see it here ; but in 

 the West Riding I found it many years ago in the neighbourhood of 

 Ripon. I have still in my collection a nest from that neighbourhood, 

 in which a young Cuckoo was brought up." Wm. Eddison remarks 

 that it is occasionally met with near Huddersfield, though but little 

 is known of its history ; B. Smith informs me that it is found near 

 Thirsk. 



This warbler's northern range was, like that of the 

 Nightingale, until recently considered to be bounded by the 

 line dividing the West and East Ridings of Yorkshire from 

 the North, and its occurrence north of the county is not 

 proven. A summer visitant, it arrives early in May, and 

 owing to the peculiar nature of its habitat, is very local 

 in its distribution, so that only patient and persistent 

 investigation reveals its whereabouts, and it is to be feared 

 its numbers are decreasing, owing chiefly to the drainage 

 of its accustomed haunts. In the West Riding it is not 

 very numerous in any locality, though it is met with near 

 Sheffield, Wakefield, the Craven district, Doncaster, Ackworth, 

 Askern, Goole, along the drain channels at Swinefleet, and 

 other suitable places, and it also occurs, but less abundantly, 

 in Lower Wharfedale and the Washburn and Nidd Valleys ; 

 near Knaresborough it was formerly plentiful, but is now 



