72 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



blackcaps, and whitethroats also nested there, and 

 were louder and more emphatic in their protests 

 when approached. There were several grasshopper 

 warblers on the common, all, very curiously as it 

 seemed to me, clustered at one spot, so that one 

 could ramble over miles of ground without hearing 

 their singular note ; but on approaching the place 

 they inhabited one gradually became conscious of a 

 mysterious trilling bu^j; or whirr, low at first and 

 growing louder and more stridulous, until the hidden 

 singers were left behind, when by degrees it sank 

 lower and lower again, and ceased to be audible at 

 a distance of about one hundred yards from the 

 point where it had sounded loudest. The birds hid 

 in clumps of furze and bramble so near together that 

 the area covered by the buzzing sound measured 

 about two hundred yards across. This most singular 

 sound (for a warbler to make) is certainly not ventri- 

 loquial, although, if one comes to it with the sense 

 of hearing disorganized by town noises or un- 

 practised, one is at a loss to determine the exact spot 

 it comes from, or even to know from which side it 

 comes. While emitting its prolonged sound the bird 

 is so absorbed in its own performance that it is not 

 easily alarmed, and will sometimes continue singing 

 with a human listener standing within four or five 

 yards of it. When one is near the bird, and listens, 

 standing motionless, the effect on the nerves of 



