BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 
The ventriloquistic " song " of the bird, from which 'it 
has earned the cognomen " grasshopper," when once heard 
IS never forgotten, and is very seldom heard except at dawn 
or dusk. Mr. Norman Maclachlan kindly sends me the 
followmg extract from his diary : Grasshopper-Warbler 
heard and then observed in a rough sedgy field immediately 
below Mihihead House on Carnsalloch Estate, Dumfriesshire 
between 9 and 9.30 p.m., Sunday, June 17th, 1906. . . [ 
The light was not good enough to note the colouring dis- 
tmctly, but as it sat facing the light some eight or ten yards 
from me I noticed that the chin and upper part of the throat 
were decidedly pale, resembling those parts of the White- 
throat. Though sitting in full view of me on a dead twig of 
meadow-sweet, it continued its song till I had approached 
withm ten yards. It then flew off some twenty yards 
and alighted on another twig, but immediately crept down 
into the thick sedge, and again began its song." Mr R 
Armstrong writes me that he has never met with this bird 
m Upper Nithsdale, but that he has heard it in the Lochar 
Moss. 
Its winter-quarters are in "Morocco, Algeria, and the 
south of Spain."* 
THE BRITISH HEDGE-SPARROW. 
Accentor modularis occidentalism Hartert. 
Local names— Hempie ; Dunnock. 
" The starved Hedge-sparrow haunts the moistened sink 
On gurly winter days, the bitter wind 
Ruffling her back, showing the bluer down 
Beneath her feathers freckled brown above. 
But ne'er she ventures nearer where man dwells." 
Thomas Aird.— " A Summer Day.'' 
A resident of very general distribution throughout the county. 
The Hedge-Sparrow may be regarded as stationary, as no 
local migration has been actually observed ; though in all 
* Brit. Warblers, Part 1, p. 9. 
