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NOTES AND QUERIES 



AVES. 



"An Unknown Warbler in Oxfordshire." — I have lately been re- 

 minded of the strange experience which I recorded in the article 

 named above (' Zoologist,' 1903, p. 343) by reading Mr. H. Eliot 

 Howard's ' British Warblers,' and especially his account of the 

 Garden-Warbler. The mystery of the unknown Warbler has never 

 been solved ; but I have for some time had a strong opinion about it, 

 and in the light of Mr. Howard's researches the story is worth a 

 momentary revival. 



The peculiarity of the bird was the song, which was utterly strange 

 to all who heard it. It was a sweet, continuous, liquid gurgle, inter- 

 rupted now and again by notes, usually three in number, of a more 

 distinctly musical type, which have a certain mellow but reedy tone, 

 not unlike some of the notes of the Eedstart. The bird was carefully 

 watched for three suceessive years in a wood some four miles from 

 Oxford : in 1901 by Mr. W. S. Medlicott and a friend, in 1902 by the 

 same good observer and nest-finder, who introduced me to it on 

 June 10th of that year, and in 1903 by myself and several younger 

 friends, all of them keen on finding a nest. But no nest was ever 

 found that could be attributed to it in any of these three seasons. 



The appearance of the bird, so far as we could see it in the rather 

 dense foliage, was on the whole that of a Garden- Warbler, though 

 the song seemed to forbid the identification. Nevertheless, I am 

 now pretty well convinced that it was an eccentric member of this 

 species, and for the benefit of future explorers of the ' Zoologist ' I 

 wish to give my reasons for this conclusion. 



1. In listening carefully to the song of Garden- Warblers I have 

 often heard something very like the notes, usually three in number, 

 on which I laid stress in the extract given above, and have been 

 instantly reminded of the mystery. Thus I have come to believe that 

 the bird was a Garden- Warbler with an abnormal or deformed voice 

 organ. 



2. Assuming the song to have been an abnormal one, we have an 

 explanation of the strange fact that, so far as we could see, the bird 

 had no mate, and for the other curious fact that no nest was found 

 in the course of three seasons, in spite of constant searching by ex- 

 perienced nest-finders. Could a female Garden- Warbler be expected 

 to take up with a male who had nothing better to offer her in the 

 way of song than this extraordinary performance ? 



