THE GRASSHOPPER WARBLER. 413 



should be again removed, they will then have time to dry them- 

 selves properly before the evening. 



" I have no doubt but the present species, with S. Arundina- 

 cea, and S. Locustella, and some other exotic species, will be here- 

 after divided from this genus, and also from the other Warblers, 

 ap.d will form a distinct one of themselves." 



161. THE GRASSHOPPER WARBLER. 



Sylvia Locustella, LATHAM and TEMMINCK. Sibillatrix Locustella, 

 MACGILLIVRAY. Grasshopper Chirper, Cricket Bird, Brakehopper. 



This is another of the British Warblers described by SWEET, 

 and not mentioned by the German Naturalist. According to 

 MACGILLIVRAY, it is a slenderly and elegantly formed, but 

 plainly coloured little bird, remarkable for its hideling habits, 

 and its peculiar cry, which greatly resembles that of the mole- 

 cricket. It arrives, from the middle to the end of April, and 

 is generally dispersed in England. It has also been found in 

 a few instances in the south of Scotland. The nest is com- 

 posed of dry grass, lined with similar but finer materials ; the 

 eggs found in one by Mr. WEIR, of Linlithgowshire, were 

 white, closely freckled with carmine dots. 



The tail of the bird is long, much graduated, and rounded ; 

 plumage of the upper parts dull olive brown, with oblong 

 dusky spots ; of the lower parts pale yellowish brown ; the 

 fore part of the neck with a few dusky lines ; the tail coverts 

 with a central brown mark. Female similar, but without the 

 dusky lines on the fore part of the neck. Young, yellowish 

 brown, spotted with dusky above, brownish yellow beneath. 



NEVILLE WOOD calls this bird the Sibilous Bushhopper, and 

 says that its proper situation in the system appears to be in 

 the sub-family Philomelina, immediately after the genus Sali- 

 caria, to which it has a direct affinity. WHITE makes some 

 interesting remarks -on its curious note, as does also BLYTH, in 

 the Magazine of Natural History, vol. vii. p. 366. 



SWEET'S ACCOUNT. " The present species is very rare in the 

 neighbourhood of London, and I have never seen more than a single 

 living one myself, anywhere in the vicinity; that one I caught in a 

 Nightingale trap, about the middle of August, 1823, in Mr.Colvill's 

 Grosvenor Nursery, in the Five-Fields, near Grosvenor Place, 

 which is now partly covered with houses ; I kept it till the Febru- 

 ary following, and it would have succeeded well, had I not allowed 

 it to wash so much, not thinking at the time that the washing 



