Birds. 4073 



once heard, cannot be mistaken. But although my ears were greeted with such wel- 

 come sounds, the wary little fellow was far too cunning to trust himself for an instant 

 within sight ; and again was I obliged to leave without obtaining a specimen. I hap- 

 pened, however, to have with me a man whose employment keeps him almost entirely 

 on the broad, both early and late, and making him observe the note well (which he 

 said he had often listened to, but never supposed it to come from a bird), he seemed 

 pretty sure of being able to shoot one. About a week after this, T was delighted at 

 receiving from him a fine male specimen ; and since then, including this year and the 

 last, he has procured for me no less than seven. Of these birds one only proved to be 

 a female, wanting entirely the little brown spots on the throat ; another, a young male 

 of the year, showed that they breed on the broad, though as yet I have been unable to 

 discover either the nest or eggs. From these circumstances, I cannot help thinking 

 that the grasshopper warbler, although visiting this country in far greater numbers 

 than either the reed or sedge warblers, is still less rare than is generally supposed, and 

 that, by careful attention to its habits, it may be met with in most localities as well 

 suited to its shy mouse-like actions as our Norfolk Broads. The following remarks, 

 from my own observations, and the shrewd descriptions of the broad-man, may not be 

 uninteresting to your readers. The grasshopper warbler arrives later and leaves us 

 earlier than either of the others. He is seldom heard in the middle of the day, and 

 never in windy weather ; but sometimes on a fine sunny afternoon, when scarcely a 

 breath of air is stirring the feathery tops of the reeds, his loud creaking note may be 

 heard in some neighbouring sedges : rarely however will he expose himself to danger, 

 even by a short flight to some other hiding-place. Early in the morning, or on moon- 

 light nights, appear to be the only certain times for seeing him, as he then seems to 

 be much less cautious, and either hanging from the reed-stems, or perched on the top- 

 most twig of some small bush, he may be heard creaking for a long time, constantly 

 moving his head from one side to the other. If heard over-night, when too dark for 

 anything to be distinguished, he will invariably be found in the same place at the first 

 dawn of morning ; and even if fired at and missed in the evening, he will still remain 

 near the same spot. Though occasionally met with in hedge-banks away from any 

 stream, he is always most certain of being found amongst reeds and sedges, in com- 

 pany with his kindred species. — H. Stevenson; Norwich, September 11, 1853. 



Note on singularly placed Nests of the Pheasant (Phasianus Colchicus) and Red- 

 legged Partridge (Perdix rufa). — The interesting account given by my friend, the Rev. 

 A. C. Smith, of a nest of the common partridge on a stubble-rick (Zool. 3945), has 

 reminded me that I ought to record two singular instances of game birds nesting in 

 elevated situations. The first is that of a pheasant, which, although it happened full 

 twenty years ago, yet I have it on the authority of two respectable eye-witnesses, and 

 I do not doubt any of the particulars of the case, which is as follows. The nest was 

 on the bough of a Scotch fir-tree, about, I suppose, fifteen feet from the ground, and 

 was an adaptation of a squirrel's " drail." The old bird was seen several times while 

 she was sitting on her eggs ; and when, in due course of time, these were hatched, my 

 informants tell me that two young ones were discovered dead at the bottom of the 

 tree, and in the nest was found one addled egg, together with the shells of nine others, 

 from which young birds had been hatched. There was a thick undergrowth of furze 

 surrounding the clump of trees in which the nest was situated, so that the bird's breed- 

 ing in so unwonted a position must have been quite the result of choice. The second 

 instance is that of a red-legged partridge, a nest of which was found here this year on 



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