BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
Towards the end of April or in May it arrives in this 
county, and departs again in August or September. 
The Wood-Wren in its winter-migrations visits the west 
and east coasts of Africa as far south as the Gold Coast 
and Abyssinia, and more generally the northern portion 
of that continent. 
[The Reed-Warbler (Acrocephalus streperus (Vieillot)) 
is only mentioned to repudiate emphatically the rumours 
that have been spread abroad from time to time as to its 
occurrence in this county. Such rumours have doubtless 
emanated from the careless confusion of this species with 
the Sedge-Warbler. A specimen of the Reed-Warbler, 
obtained prior to 1840 from the Rev. W. Little's collection 
now in Mr. R. Service's possession, is without a label Most 
of this gentleman's specimens came from his parish of 
Kirkpatrick-Juxta, but this is one which I believe did not. 
The assertions that it has occurred in Glencairn* and m 
Moffatt have proved to have been entirely erroneous. 
Up till now the only Scottish record of this bird is from 
Fair Isle on September 24th, 1906, and Mr. Wm. Eagle Clarke 
writes • " The occurrence of this bird at Fair Isle presents 
one of those enigmas .... with which the study of bird 
migration is so much beset."t The Reed-Warbler winters 
in the basin of the Mediterranean and as far south as central 
Africa, and is an annual visitant to England towards the 
end of' April, departing again in September.] 
THE SEDGE-WARBLER. 
Acrocephalus phragmitis (Bechstein). 
A common summer-visitant. 
Sometimes in the last week of April, but more usually early 
in May, the Sedge-Warblers arrive in the county, and speedily 
* Trans. D. and O. Nat. Hist. Soc, December 13th, 1901. 
t Dumfries Courier and Herald, April 6th, 1907. 
X Ann. Scot. Nat. Hist., 1907, p. 74. 
