The Zoologist— August, 1870. 2229 



A List of the Birds of Cornwall. By Edward Hearle Rood, Esq. 



(Continued from S. S. 2204). 



Sedge Warbler. — Summer visitant ; generally distributed ; frequents 

 wet ditches, willow plots, &c., and sings both in the day and night : 

 when concealed in cover it is stationary, but when in open hedges 

 continually moving about. 



Reed Warbler. — Several captured at Scilly, with other summer 

 migrants, in the autumn of 1849 (see woodchat shrike) ; not known as 

 Cornish until then. Very rare in the western counties, and altogether 

 as a British bird much more rare and local than the sedge warbler : 

 distinguished from the sedge warbler by the absence of a line over the 

 eye, and by the uniform brown colour of its back, without dark 

 spots. Its song has a higher but rather weaker pitch than the sedge 

 warbler. It has also a much greater variety, is more warbling, and 

 more original with less imitative qualities than the sedge warbler, which 

 latter bird seems perpetually to mock the songs of other birds in all 

 its passages. The reed wren's song is a hurried but a decided warble, 

 and is not unlike the low hurried warble of the whitethroat, when that 

 bird sings without excitement, and mounting in the air. The reed 

 wren's song, however, is chiding and grating, but in a less degree than 

 that of the sedge warbler : the notes are not so forced or loud as 

 in that bird, but sufficiently marked to denote its being one of 

 the true aquatic warblers. 



Blackcap Warbler. — Local ; summer visitant. Occasionally 

 observed in Gulval and Lariggan valleys, and at Trereife ; in the 

 eastern part of the county very generally distributed. Song sweet, 

 wild, and full. As the summer advances the song is then less 

 interrupted, louder, and far more remarkable for variety of expression ; 

 when continued thus unbroken the song is one of the most attractive 

 of our smaller song birds. The blackcap is sometimes found in the 

 winter months sparingly in the neighbourhood of Penzance ; they have 

 been observed in ivy against walls, the most favourable locality for 

 insects and spiders, Sec. 



Garden Warbler. — Summer visitant: eastern parts of the county. 

 One only recorded as seen about Penzance, although several specimens 

 were obtained, along with other of our summer migrants, from Scilly, 

 in the autumn of 1849. (See pied flycatcher, reed wren, &c.) This 

 species breeds annually in the woods at Trebavtha, in North-hill, from 



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