SAVl'S WARBLER. 391 



first described it from specimens taken in the autumn 

 of 1821 in Tuscany, where he ascertained that it was a 

 migrant arriving about the middle of April. For some 

 years following, little, if anything, was added to its history, 

 except that it was supposed by Polydore Roux to occur in 

 Provence, and figured by him in his ' Ornithologie Proven- 

 9ale ' (tab. 211, bis), but he did not meet with it there. 



Knowing only the facts mentioned in the last paragraph, 

 and unconscious of its original discovery in Norfolk, so un- 

 luckily suppressed by Temminck, the late Mr. Gr. R. Gray 

 announced in the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural His- 

 tory ' for October, 1840 (vi. p. 155), the capture, in the spring 

 of that year, in the fens of Cambridgeshire, of two birds of 

 this species, as being its first occurrence in England. These 

 examples were procured by the late Mr. J. Baker of Mel- 

 bourne in that county, and one of them is now in the British 

 Museum.* Soon afterwards, or at least prior to 1843, Mr. 

 Joseph Clarke, of Saffron -Walden, obtained a pair, as is 

 believed, from the same locality, and these specimens, which 

 were for a time obligingly devoted to the use of this work, 

 are preserved in the museum of that town. 



From information which has been most kindly supplied to 

 the Editor by Mr. Bond and Mr. John Brown, of Cambridge, 

 both of whom have long been in the habit of making ento- 

 mological excursions in the rapidly diminishing fen-country, 

 it would appear that the specimens just mentioned, as well 

 as some others from the same district afterwards, were 

 obtained through the intervention of one Harvey, the lock- 

 keeper at Baitsbight on the river Cam. At that time a large 

 extent of fen in the neighbourhood was overgrown with one 

 of the social sedges (Cladium mariscus), which towards 

 autumn was regularly cut, and being made into bundles 

 was carried by water to Cambridge, to serve as kindling 

 for fires. The sedge-cutters used commonly to find many 

 old nests of singular construction in the course of their 



* In a communication to Mr. Stevenson by Mr. H. T. Frere, the latter says that 

 many years before, specimens had been sent from Norfolk to the British Museum 

 by the late Mr. Jary. These are not now forthcoming. 



