Grasshopper Warbler. 153 



wheat is in operation. In France it is Vitrec and Traquet 

 moteux, which may be translated ' restless mill-clapper ;' in 

 Germany, Grauruckiger Steinschmatzer, l Gray-backed Stone- 

 kisser'; in Italy, Gulbianco, ' White throat ;' and in Portugal, 

 Caiada, ' Whitewashes' 



46. GRASSHOPPER WARBLER (Salicaria locustella}. 



This, the most shy and retiring of all the warblers, derives its 

 name from the rapid ticking noise which it will continue for a 

 long time without intermission ; and its curious note is so like 

 the chirp of the grasshopper, that it is often mistaken for it. As 

 soon as it arrives in the spring, it makes known the fact by the 

 cricket-like ticking which proceeds from the midst of the very 

 thickest bush or furze, where it hides itself from human sight, 

 and here it skulks arid creeps, and at the bottom of the furze 

 amid the thickest grass it conceals its nest ; indeed, so shy is it 

 that it is rarely seen, and but for its incessant chirp would 

 escape general notice. Selby calls it a ventriloquist, because it 

 not only imitates the notes of several other birds, but in uttering 

 its peculiar note can cause the sound at one moment to proceed 

 from the immediate neighbourhood of the listener, and at the 

 next, as if removed to some distance, and this without any actual 

 change of place in the operator a peculiarity which it shares 

 with the corn-crake, also a bird very difficult to raise on the 

 wing. It is of elegant shape, and its plumage consists of mottled 

 shades of brown. 



The generic name Salicaria is simply ' Willow Warbler,' and 

 locustella, the diminutive of locusta, 'grasshopper/ from its 

 cricket-like cry; hence, too, our specific name, and with pre- 

 cisely the same signification we find Bee-fin Locustelle in France, 

 and Heuschrecken Sanger in Germany. 



Montagu, speaking of the localities where he had seen this 

 bird, says, ' We have found it in Hampshire, South Wales, and 

 Ireland, but nowhere so plentiful as on Malmesbury Common in 

 Wiltshire, to which place the males come about the latter end 

 of April.' The late Canon John Wilkinson sent me the eggs 



