78 



British Birds, with their Nests and Eggs. 



many others of his specimens, into the possession of an old friend of his, Mr. 

 Elijah Tarrant, of whom Mr. John Robinson, an undergraduate of Trinity Hall, 

 bought it about a twelvemonth since. Up to this time no one seems to have 

 known what the bird was, though some ingenious person had hazarded the sug- 

 gestion that it was a variety of the Nightingale. Soon after it was seen by Mr. 

 Frederick Bond, F.Z.S., who at once recognised it as Sylvia nisoria, and was good 

 enough to advise its being shown to me." 



Prof. Newton then proceeds to point out good and sufficient reasons for 

 believing that this specimen actually was obtained in England. Apparently it was 

 shot either in spring or early summer: it was skulking in dense foliage and was 

 only shot with the greatest difficulty and then at so short a range that a good 

 many of its feathers were knocked out. *The taxidermist who stuffed it inserted 

 a glass eye with a pale yellow iris, a clear proof that he must have seen the bird 

 very soon after it was shot; otherwise it is not probable that he would have 

 selected a colour which is rare in the family. 



Had the occurrence of this single example been the sole argument in favour 

 of regarding the Barred Warbler as British, I should have treated the species as 

 a mere chance visitor to our islands, and practically ignored it ; but singularly 

 enough, on the very year after the publication of Mr. Seebohm's observation, 

 three specimens were brought to the notice of Zoologists : the first of these, a 

 young bird, was shot on August i6th, 1884, near Broadford in the Isle of Skye, 

 by Mr. G. D. Lees ; the second, an immature female, on the 28th of the same 

 month, by the Rev. H. H. Slater, who observed it skulking in an elder-hedge by 

 a potato- garden in some sand hills on the Yorkshire coast, he stated that the bird 

 was very shy and difficult to see ; the third, another immature female, was shot 

 by Mr. F. D. Power, of Brixton, on the 4th of September, from scrub at the base 

 of Blakeney sandhills, Norfolk. The occurrence of three young examples in one 

 year, almost seems to justify the conclusion that this Warbler, when on migration, 

 may frequently visit us ; but, owing to its disinclination to show itself in the open, 

 may have evaded observation. 



In the last edition of Stevenson's " Birds of Norfolk," edited by Thos. South- 

 well, a member of the British Ornithologists' Union, the latter gentleman speaks 

 of an example of the Barred Warbler as having been shot at Blakeney after easterly 

 winds on the loth September, 1888, and he says that this bird on dissection 

 proved to be a male. The contents of the stomach consisted largely of earwigs. 



This would appear to be distinctly a fifth occurrence of the Barred Warbler 

 upon the British coasts : scrub in the vicinity of sandhills seems to be the most 



* This specimen is still iu the possession of Mr. Robinson, who resides at Elterwater, Westmoreland. 



