536 CISTICOLA CUESITANS. 



plentiful in parts of the Transvaal, Natal, and also in Damaraland, in which region it exists in the form of 

 C. ayresi. (Natal) and C. terrestris (Transvaal), which two races, Mr. Gurney has pointed out, are identical 

 with the C. schomicola of Europe, and consequently with C. cursitans of Asia. 



Habits. — The Grass- Warbler, as its name implies, frequents both cultivated and wild grass-land of all 

 sorts, paddy-fields, marshes, swamps, meadow-land surrounding inland tanks, waste ground covered with rank 

 herbage, patnas, and all places where the soil will grow sufficient cover for it to thread its way about in. It 

 is essentially terrestrial in its mode of life, and is the most restless little creature imaginable, rising up a 

 hundred times in the day, with its spasmodic jerking flight and singular chick-chick note, and then suddenly 

 descending to earth, as if it were simply desirous of exercising its muscular powers or discontented with the 

 haunts that fate had allotted to it. Nothing, perhaps, can be more interesting to the lover of animated 

 nature than, on a lovely morning, to walk through the rich pastures clothing the alluvial deposits round the 

 vast Minery tank, and while the ear is arrested with the sweet song of hundreds of Sky-Larks, to watch the 

 vagaries of these little denizens of the grass, as they flit up and down and send forth their singularly sharp 

 little notes. Its manner of hovering on the wing when it reaches its greatest altitude, which is generally from 

 .">0 to 100 feet, is a mere habit, and not done with any view of selecting a place to alight in, as it invariably 

 " jerks " itself down to the ground considerably beyond where it has been poising itself. The large variety, 

 which frequents the patnas of the Nuwara-Elliya plateau and the Horton and other elevated plains, has a 

 habit of alighting on the tops of bushes and rhododendron-trees, and there remaining perched for some time, 

 which I have not observed in the low-country birds. This species is particularly lively in the evenings, just 

 before going to roost, and when it settles on the ground, immediately threads its way through the grass, not 

 by running on the ground, but by adroitly springing from stalk to stalk, and darting here and there wherever 

 an opening in the vegetation presents to it an easy way of escape. When it realights, after being flushed, it 

 will always be found a good number of paces from where it first disappeared, no matter how quickly one 

 follows it up. 



There is perhaps no bird of this family concerning which more has been written than the present ; and 

 that which has attracted notice, in the case of all naturalists who have observed it, is its peculiar flight, as also 

 its interesting mode of nidification. Of the European race, which, however, appears to frequent sedges and marshy 

 places much more than oui's, Col. Irby writes : — -" In the spring they go to the cornticlds as well, never, however, 

 being found away from water. I do not recollect ever seeing them perch on bush or tree, but always on some 

 plant. Their note and jerky flight somewhat remind one of the Meadow-Pipit; during the nesting season in 

 particular they will fly darting about high over head for several minutes, continually uttering their squeaky 

 single note (whence the name of Tin-Tin), all the time evidently trying to decoy the intruder from their nest." 

 In spite of what 1 have already said about the European, African, and Asiatic Cisticolce being identical, I would 

 heir remark that the difference in the note of the European and the Indian bird, and likewise the extraordinarv 

 variety in the eggs of the former (allusion to which will presently be made), while those of the latter are all of 

 the one type, is somewhat remarkable, and might well be considered sufficient to establish grounds for a slight 

 separation of the two races. As far as external characteristics go, I do not perceive that the African bird can 

 be separated from the Indian, as has already been stated in this article; and competent ornithologists affirm 

 that there is no difference in the birds on both sides of the Mediterranean. The diet of the species in Ceylon 

 consists of many sorts of small insects and caterpillars ; and lirehm says that " the indigestible parts of the food, 

 which consists of small beetles [Diptcru), caterpillars, and little snails, are thrown up in pellets.'" It is with 

 reference to observations made in Africa that this statement is made ; but I have no knowledge of the same 

 thing having been noticed in India. Jerdon remarks that " during the breeding-season the male bird may be 

 seen se;iti I on a tall blade of grass, pouring forth a feeble little song." 



Nidification. — This Warbler apparently has two broods in the year, nesting for its first in May, June, and 

 .Inly, and for the second in November and December. Its style of architecture is suited to the locality in 

 which it builds; but at all times it constructs a very beautiful little nest. It is, when built in tall grass or 

 paddy, usually situated about 2 feet from the ground : a framework is first made by passing cotton or other 

 such material round and through several stalks or stiff blades of grass; when a tolerably secure wall is thus 



