GRASSHOPPER WARBLER. 
SALIC ARIA L0CU8TELLA. 
The Grasshopper Warbler has been traced, I believe, to various parts of Scotland; further north than Norfolk, 
however, I have been unable positively to identify a single specimen. In that county it is numerous, 
though local; and the same remark as to its distribution might apply to Sussex and others of the 
southern counties. 
Although a considerably earlier date has been assigned to the first arrivals of this migrant, it is seldom, 
according to my own experience, that any number show themselves till the first week in May. There is 
little doubt these Warblers, as a rule, make the passage of the Channel in small scattered parties, after 
the manner affected by others of the family ; still I have, on two separate occasions, met with large numbers 
in the immediate vicinity of the south coast. When shooting in the Nook at Rye, in Sussex, early one 
morning in May 1858, I found the samphire and other small salt-water weeds growing on the mudbanks 
completely swarming with Grasshopper Warblers. These birds had apparently just reached the coast, and 
were on the point of making their way inland. There must have been several hundred in a small 
patch of weeds of a dozen or twenty acres. There were probably other denizens of the marshes among them ; 
but the half-dozen birds secured by two shots which I fired into the cover were all of this species. Again, 
during the first week in May 1868 it was evident tliat a large flight must have reached the shore a short distance 
west of Brighton, many of the hedgerows in the district being thickly tenanted with these Warblers as well as 
other members of the same family. It was late in the day before the whole of tlie travellers had worked any 
distance inland ; but on the following morning they had all taken their departure. 
Though frequently found in the neighbourhood of water, this Warbler is by no means so aquatic in 
its habits as the more common Reed- and Sedge-Warblers. Several pairs breed round many of the broads 
in the east of Norfolk, frequenting the tangled bushes and rough cover round the marsh-walls. I have also 
discovered their nests under the shelter of long coarse grass in hay-fields and on bramble-covered banks 
in the more southern counties. 
The nest, usually concealed with the utmost care, is composed of the dried strands of various grasses 
and plants. The architects, whether inhabiting the moist flat districts of the eastern counties or the dense 
hedgerows and rough banks of Sussex, appear to make use of much the same materials. The e»-"s have a 
dull white ground (with a pinkish tinge when fresh) thickly speckled with fine spots of light red. 
The curious note of this species has frequently attracted my attention in localities where I had no 
notion the bird was to be met with. It is useless, in these pages, to attempt to describe this singular 
performance, not inaptly denominated by several authors the “ trill.” Words, indeed, can scarcely convey 
an idea of the strangely deceptive sounds as they rise and fall in the still morning air, the movement 
of the head of the bird producing a mysterious uncertainty as to the direction from which the note is 
uttered. Though very difficult to catch a glimpse of during the day, these Warblers may generally be observed 
