609 



Genus LOCUSTELLA. 



Motacilla apud Boddaert, Tabl. des PL Enl. p. 35 (1783). 



Sylvia apud Latham, Ind. Orn. ii. p. 515 (1790). 



Acrocephalus apud J. A. Naumann, Naturg. Land- u. Wasser-V6g. Nachtr. Heft iv. p. 202 



(1811). 

 Muscipeta apud Koch, Baier. Zool. i. p. 166 (1816). 

 Calamoherpe apud Boie, Isis, 1822, p. 552. 



Curruca apud Stephens, in Shaw's Gen. Zool. xiii. p. 213 (1825). 

 Locustella, Kaup, Naturl. Syst. p. 115 (1829). 

 Salicaria apud Selby, Brit. Orn. i. p. 199 (1833). 

 Pseudoluscinia apud Bonaparte, Comp. List, p. 12 (1838). 

 Sibilatrix apud Macgillivray, Hist. Brit. B. ii. p. 399 (1839). 

 Cisticola apud Durazzo, Ucc. Lig. p. 35 (1840). 

 Psithyrcedus apud Gloger, Gemeinn. Hanclb. Naturg. p. 298 (1842). 

 Lusciniopsis apud Bonaparte, Cat. met. Ucc. Eur. p. 36 (1842). 

 Lusciniola apud Bonaparte, Cat. Parzud. p. 6 (1856). 

 Parnopia apud Blasius, List B. of Eur. p. 11 (1862). 

 Potamodus apud G. R. Gray, Hand-1. of B. i. p. 210 (1869). 

 Threnetria apud E. Schauer, J. f. Orn. 1873, p. 161. 

 Acridiornis apud Severtzoff, Turk. Jevotnie, p. 66 (1873). 



In this genus I have included several species, all of which are said to differ from the other- 

 Aquatic Warblers in having a peculiar sibilant grasshopper-like cry, and also in having very 

 long under tail-coverts ; and the tendons of the tibial muscles are strongly ossified. Their eggs 

 are also somewhat different from those of the other Aquatic Warblers. The Grasshopper- 

 Warblers occur in the central, north central, and southern parts of the Palsearctic Region, as 

 also in the Indo-Malayan and Ethiopian Regions. Five species are found within the limits of 

 the Western Palsearctic Region, four of which breed regularly within its limits, but the fifth 

 {Locustella certhiola) is only a rare straggler from the Eastern Palsearctic Region. 



In habits the Locustellce assimilate closely to the other Aquatic Warblers ; for they 

 frequent marshy and reed-covered localities, being found in dense reed thickets ; but they are 

 also not unfrequently to be met with in dry bush-covered places as well as near water. The 

 note of these birds is peculiar, being very similar to that of a grasshopper or mole-cricket, but 

 much louder. They do not, as a rule, place their nest amongst aquatic herbage, but on the 

 ground amongst tangled brushwood, where it is carefully concealed amongst the grass ; and the 

 eggs, from four to six in number, are reddish white, closely freckled with red or pale reddish 

 brown. 



Locustella ncevia, the type of the present genus, has the bill moderately long, straight, rather 

 broader than high at the base, compressed towards the end ; nostrils basal, oval, placed in the 

 fore part of the nasal membrane, which is feathered behind ; wings rather short, pointed, first 

 quill very short and small, the second and third longest, and nearly equal ; tail long, broad, 

 graduated, under tail-coverts very long ; tarsus long, covered in front with four plates and three 

 inferior scutellae ; toes compressed, the hind toe large, claws moderate, curved ; plumage soft, 

 blended, the upper parts spotted. 



21 



