26 THE BIRDS OF DEVON. 



example of the Rufous "Warbler had previously occurred in this country, 

 and this was in the neighbourhood of Brighton in September 1854. It 

 must be a strange accident that brings a bird which is only a summer 

 visitant to the south of Europe so far to the north as to be found on our 

 coast in the autumn. Most probably these stragglers had become mixed 

 up with some other party of birds, or else had been carried far out of their 

 course by an adverse wind. It is stated that a strong south wind had 

 been blowing for some time previous to the occurrence of the first Devon- 

 shire specimen of this Warbler. 



THE AQUATIC WARBLERS. 



We have now arrived at the Aquatic "Warblers, a numer- 

 ous family, of which there are but three species, all summer 

 visitants, at all plentifully distributed in this country, and 

 of these but one, the Sedge- Warbler, can be said to be 

 common in Devonshire, or, indeed, in the S.W. counties. 

 These Warblers are to be known by their short, rounded 

 wings, their long and wedge-shaped tails, and by their 

 strong legs and long prehensile toes and claws, adapted to 

 their taking a firm hold of the reeds about which they 

 climb most of the day in search of small insects. They 

 all have a habit of singing by night, and their song con- 

 sists of a quick hurried babbling, which seems to arise on 

 all sides of one when near their favourite haunts of a 

 summer evening. Tiie West Country, with its rapid trout- 

 streams flowing through moorlands, woods, and meadows, 

 rarely fringed anywhere on their banks with the dense 

 tangle of herbage these Warblers love to frequent, does 

 not seem suited to their presence, and it is for this reason, 

 with the one exception mentioned above, they are only 

 rare stragglers within its confines. Slapton Ley, in South 

 Devon, might seem a suitable locality for the Reed-Wren, 

 and here it was, without doubt, detected one summer by 

 Mr. J. H. Gurney, Sen., but its appearance was only acci- 

 dental, and we cannot find that it has been observed there 



